From Charity Nwakaudu, Abuja

In commemoration of the 2022 International Youth Day, IYD, the Ladi Kwali Foundation has organised its first Ladi Kwali Summit, to address some of the world’s most pressing issues in an innovative and forward thinking manner.

The summit was also to honor the late Dr. Ladi Kwali’s luminous legacy.

Speaking during the event held yesterday in Abuja, the Executive Director of the foundation Mr. Japhet Sha’agi Kineze stated that this year’s Summit was focused on the “Rebirth of African Culture, Arts, and Technology in Africa’s Development.”

Kineze said “the summit brings together young passionate leaders who are rewriting our history to discuss the challenges that young change-makers face in preserving the nation’s arts and culture through the use of technology.”

He noted that joining forces could have a huge impact on the socioeconomic growth of a community that needs to support young people.

In his words, “Examining our community, this is plagued by insecurity, brain drain, poverty, an infrastructure deficit, and a high rate of youth unemployment. It is difficult to generate professional opportunities due to a lack of information, facilities, and interpersonal support.

“However, few targeted intervention efforts were being made to address this problems which he listed as: inadequate participation of women, youth, and prospective entrepreneurs in practical training, as well as insufficient assistance, stifles growth and keeps these women and adolescents from reaching their goals. Most are forced to leave and engage in regressive habits and behaviors that stifle societal progress.

“Though the government, organizations, and individuals have continued to advocate for technological governance, we believe that in order to adequately address issues affecting Women and youth, we must promote inclusively, level the playing field, remove bottlenecks, encourage accountability for community growth, increase access to quality education, and then create platforms where these women and youth can fully explore, generate new ideas, and join force.

“Even in this current reality, I believe we should muster sufficient willpower to begin doing the right things in order to return to our misaligned world. We must see it as a challenge to reclaim Africa’s historical pride, to embrace a positive mindset African’s prosperity.

“This is an incredible opportunity for us to have an African conversation about how we can advance African development through arts, culture, and technology. This year’s summit is jam-packed with educational and entertaining content for everyone. We have participants from all over the world, the majority of who are notable experts in their fields, CEOs, thought leaders, and important industry players.”

In his goodwill message, Former Chairman, Kwali Area Council, Hon. Ibrahim Daniel, stated that the country has assests that could be converted into wealth and it was advisable for the youths to optimize such opportunities adding that “the world today is driven by modern day technologies and if you want to make it today you must be very creative and now that we have such assests how to convert them into wealth using the modern day technologies ”

Ibrahim urged the youths to use culture as a tool for development and a medium to delve into the international community while also calling on them, not to be left behind as the world progresses.

“The challenges we have today is because of the idle mind, and we feel very strongly that there is nothing we can do. In every home, every person has a technological device that we can connect with and be creative with. So the youths should be inquisitive by being creative.

“We will upscale through seminars, through workshop and through community driven program, so that the youth can be aware that they can be productive and they can make work out of it, they can be of good benefit to themselves and to the country in general,” he continued.

Also Co- organiser, Michael Akou noted that the summit was aimed at presenting ways in which technology can impact change for the betterment of people, especially the younger generation saying, “we’re bringing technology to ingrain with social fabric, specifically arts and culture also making sure that we could use the existing technology to create a bigger impact. It’s about how do we effectively use technology to increase awareness to create value exchange.

“And one thing that we need to change now in this world is making sure that there’s a direct value exchange between people and the economy without gatekeepers, you know, intervention of centralized platforms that have taken all this value away from people.

“So our mission is to really support value creation for people, key into education, make sure that we can bring real foundational grassroots of how we can use technology and develop workshops, and I think it’s gonna contribute greatly to the economy.”