Equipping young people with digital skills can reduce youth unemployment

Barimah Amoaning Samuel [C]

Ghanaian blogger and creative director of the YT Creators Festival in Ghana, Barimah Amoaning Samuel has stated that one of the major ways of reducing youth unemployment in Africa is equipping young people with digital skills.

Speaking on a panel at the just ended YT Creators festival, Barimah said: “It’s true the space is saturated, that’s why we’re doing something like this because we need to be educated on about the craft we’ve chosen, it’s a dynamic industry hence we must be updated all the time. I believe equipping young people with digital skills is one of the major means of reducing youth unemployment in Africa.”

Ghana saw the largest gathering of digital content creators at the first-ever Zeepay YT Creators festival last weekend. This initiative by Entamoty Media Limited in partnership with ICS Africa was one of the highly anticipated events in the month of November as well as the governments’ official ‘Beyond the return’ event being forecasted.

Africa’s biggest creator, Mark Angel, Ghana’s leading YouTuber Wode Maya, Kenya’s Miss Trudy, CEO of Menta , Yonny Friedman and the French Ambassador to Ghana, H.E Anne Sophie Avé were some of the special guests of the festival.

The 3-day (26 – 28 November) creators festival began with a tour for creators and influencers. Before the tour started there was a special meet and greet session amongst creators, the media, and Mark Angel. The Accra City tour with creators was a fun-filled and exciting road safari expedition with Ghana Tourism newly launched double-decker buses for experiencing Ghana.

Creators were driven through Ako Adjei Interchange, Ring Road Central, Kwame Nkrumah Interchange, Accra Digital Center, Boxing Emporium, James Town, Lighthouse, Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, Independence Square and ended at ATIC. Since the bus was filled with content creators, all you could see is selfie sticks, tripods, cameras, and smartphones in the air just for them to catch a glimpse of the amazing sceneries in Accra Ghana.

The second day which was regarded as the main day of the festival took place at Zeepay head office in cantonment from 9am to 5pm. The activities scheduled included keynote presentations, one on ones, panel discussion sessions, master class, brainstorming and virtual reality experience.

Despite being a full day’s summit, the Saturday event was engaging, informative yet devoid of boredom; at one point some participants didn’t want it to end. The master class was the most insightful session as both creators and potential content creators were able to undergo practical classes to learn subjects like YouTube content monetization, Seo and algorithm growth and basic video editing techniques. The class was led by Rick Aqua, Mordin Bi Taiwan and Cyber Reviews.

Mark Angel and Wode Maya had one on one to share their success stories and inspired fellow creators about the art of content creation. Other Speakers included CEO of Zeepay Andrew Takyi Appiah, CEO of Menta , Yonny Friedman, Media personality Jessica Osei – Saforo, Nadia Modoc, Steven Blessing Ackah and the French Ambassador to Ghana, H.E Anne Sophie Avé.

Other speakers who took on the panel discussion included MzGee, George Britton, Kwadwo Sheldon, Ivy Prosper and Lakeisha Ford. The summit ended with an exclusive influential party hosted by Zeepay Ghana.

The creators’ awards and concert at Accra City Hotel on Sunday 28th November climaxed the whole Zeepay YT Creators Festival. It was a night of glamour, fashion, and excellence. Creators turned up in their Afrocentric costumes looking all elegant and alluring for the night.

Some of the content creators who took home a golden plaque included Jessica Opare – Saforo who won YT Creator of the Year, Ivy Prosper as Travel Creator, Mark Angel and Wode Maya winning the Zeepay YT African Influencer of the year and the YT Diaspora Creator of the year respectively.

The event is an Entamoty Media Initiative in partnership with ICS Africa Limited and support from Zeepay Ghana.