Cameroon’s National Agency for Information and Communication Technologies (ANTIC) has intensified its digital skills campaign aimed at making young people more creative and innovative in the face of disruptive technologies.

The agency recently held a two-day intensive hands-on training for some 100 youth on digital and modern-day entrepreneurship skills.

The workshop in the city of Bafoussam was followed by presentations and discussions on digital skills in the disruptive technologies’ era led by some of Cameroon’s top techpreneurs and ecosystem leaders.

This year’s digital skills campaign was organised under the theme: “Digital skills for youth entrepreneurship in the fourth industrial revolution.”

Director General of ANTIC, Ebot Ebot Enaw, said low productivity and scaled back growth, coupled with the inability to fully benefit from disruptive technologies, and high-performance computing could lead to deteriorating quality of essential services and block the transition to a more advanced economy.

Enaw said the agency is keen on using the campaign to promote youth employability and entrepreneurship in the disruptive technologies’ era as well as accelerate the development of Cameroon’s digital economy.

“As governments and industries deploy disruptive technologies such as cloud computing, Big Data, advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning and Internet of Things (IoT) to meet citizens’ and customers’ needs, this event positions itself as an open platform for experts to dialogue with youths on how to harness these technologies to create new markets and business models. These new models create competition, drive down prices and increase consumer choice,” Enaw said.

The workshop, which was facilitated by experts from ANTIC, Microsoft, the academia, amongst others, also served as an avenue to foster industry collaboration.

It also acted as a catalyst for mobilising and securing commitments from key industry players and stakeholders within the digital economy to build strong and productive digital skills alliances so as to gain the digital momentum.

For the Director General of ANTIC, the main challenge is to see into it that everyone has access to the advantages of digital economy despite their geographic location, income and specificities.

“This include access to digital infrastructure, education and training as well as the tools and resources needed to them to participate in the digital economy,” Enaw said.