My Open Source Africa Festival 2022 Attendance as a Speaker Experience Part Two (#OSCAFest22 Speaker Experience)

Hi! thank you for reading through part one of this article. If you have not read part one of this article, please read it here before continuing with part two.

Here are some of my reflections/deeper thoughts about #OSCAFest22

There is so much attention and awareness from big tech, around technology and open source initiatives in Africa. Seeing a list of sponsors and partners of this event will show how much attention there is from big tech, and they are contributing to creating awareness around tech and their platforms.

See event page https://festival.oscafrica.org/

For the last decade, big tech has invested billions of dollars (​​https://disrupt-africa.com/2022/01/28/african-tech-startup-funding-almost-trebles-to-pass-2bn-mark-in-2021/ ) into the African Tech/Startup Ecosystem, championing programs, funding for startups, projects, tech groups/communities, and activities for tech talents in Africa. I think this is beginning to pay off as we have few startups that are now unicorns, see URL : https://nairametrics.com/2022/02/15/african-unicorn-the-most-valuable-startups-by-africans-you-should-know/

The below category of attendees were present at the event, this event was able to gather about 800 people made up of the below category. Attendees came from different states around Nigeria, and also from other West African Countries.

• Developers
• Designers
• Startup founders
• UI/UX
• Contents writers
• Developer Advocates

Key points

I had the opportunity of meeting with amazing developers, and one outstanding developer, among many others, was a 16 year old Bitcoin core contributor. https://github.com/johnoseni1 . I had the opportunity of speaking with a software engineer from paystack https://paystack.com/, one of the Startups that is now a unicorn in Africa. Developers at this event had world class skills in tech ranging from AI, Data Analytics, Blockchain, VR/AR, web/mobile, UI/UX Designers, etc.

The developer advocate/community managers pool was also very rich. We had DevRels and Advocates from Google, GitHub, Microsoft, Covalent, Polygon, Filecoin, and other amazing world-class companies at the event. The main point during conversation with these group of people was the following:

• The need for Africa to leapfrog using the amazing opportunities presented by the open and accessible nature of modern technologies.
• The need to experiment with the concepts of open source knowledge and project sharing.
• The need to experiment and implement decentralised concepts, both in Governance and in every other sector in Africa.
• The need to build an active community around technology adoption in Africa
• The need for collaboration and partnerships in driving the adoption of technology in Africa
• The need to incentivise adoption of technology by youth in Africa
• The need to support and get funding for African Startups
• The need for African developers and designers/technical content writers to seize the remote work opportunity in gaining world class experience.
• The need for hype about blockchain in Africa
• The need for strong community building around blockchain/tech in Africa
• Need for DeFi adoption as a major contributor to banking the millions of unbanked/underbanked Africans
• Community engagement strategies
• Strong and free e-educational learning platforms as a means to provide education/learning for those who are talented, but cannot afford basic education
• The need for the Governments to champion, encourage, and incentivise digital skills acquisition as a source of youth empowerment/job creation strategy.
• Equipping African youth with the required digital skills, in order for them to participate in the remote job opportunities being globally implemented.
• Championing the “Catching them young” campaign as a means of introducing STEM education, and re-orientation of the future leaders in Africa.
• The need to encourage awareness/advocacy creation around the opportunities that can be accessed in digital skills acquisition.

The poverty/unemployed level of youth in Africa is very high, according to the latest Labour Force report of the National Bureau of Statistics, unemployment among young Nigerians (15- 34 years) is the highest in the country, with 21.72 million or 42.5 percent of the 29.94 young Nigerians in the labour force are unemployed, while the national unemployment rate stood at 33.3 percent as at December 2020, source: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2022/03/40-of-nigerian-youths-jobless-angry-restless-adesina/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20latest%20Labour,stood%20at%2033.3%20per%20cent

African youth can leverage the remote job opportunities being globally appreciated as a means for self sustenance without relying on the local economy to create jobs. Of course, the required skill set to play and be able to compete in the global digital jobs employment opportunities must first be acquired, either by Government championed initiatives, or self learning, using e-learning opportunities, thanks to the internet/computer age.

During the networking sessions with event attendees, I was surprised to find out that 20 to 30 percent of developers, designers, engineers, content writers, dev advocates, were already working remotely for tech companies outside of Nigeria. This is huge for the country, as these people do not have to rely on the local economy to provide job opportunities. They earn their salaries in USD, and thereby contribute to bringing foreign money into the country. The country benefits because they pay tax and have to spend the money in the economy. During the event, I was personally advising developers with world class skills to seize remote job opportunities now being encouraged globally. In the past, you needed to relocate outside the country to have access to working with foreign opportunities, but thanks to the power of remote job opportunities, you can work globally from anywhere in your country, provided you have the required skill, internet, power, and a computer.

Some feedback from developers and designers/technical content writers

• Scholarships, programs for online learning
• Internship/mentorship opportunity as a source of learning and experimenting on acquired skills
• Adoption of remote work opportunities
• Demand for the right infrastructure like power, good roads, security, favourable policies for startups
• Demand for more digital skills learning opportunities
• The need for tech hubs and startup incubation centres to be built/funded for new and existing hubs
• Demand for African remote work opportunities to pay on a global salary standard, instead of paying through stigmatisation
• Push for more employment opportunities in the global remote work concept
• Stereotyping of African tech talent
• Drive paying open source community contribution opportunity
• The need for awareness of the Government/security agencies on the differences between internet fraud stars and real tech talents.
• Stop the abuse of tech talents, simply because they carry expensive working tools like MacBook and Iphone, or drive a good car.

Feedback from few Startups

• Access to market for some proven tech startups that need to access global market
• The need for free startup and Incubation programs as a means of supporting/grooming tech startups in the Country
• Access to funding for startups
• Favourable policies for startups
• Awareness creation and mentorship as a way to encourage self sustenance through startup creation

I became very optimistic about the future of those African youth that would leverage the opportunity of open source and online learning platforms to develop world class tech skills. Some of them will build interesting startups solving challenges in the region, while others will be great team players in big tech around the world. I saw first hand, raw talents that can be outsourced and given the opportunity to play in the global tech space. I think the huge investment made by big tech for more than a decade now, through building tech and startup support communities, and investing in infrastructure has started to pay off, as many Africans now work in strategic roles in some of these big tech companies, while others are building great tech startups.

The last day of the event was special, we had lots of amazing sessions, the networking and connecting with each other was very interesting. We ended the event with group pictures, and a fair well and safe travel to everyone that attended the event from outside Lagos State.

As at the time of this writing, official video recording and photographs of the event have not yet been published. I will update the article with video recording of my speaker session, and pictures from the event.

Thank you to the organisers for giving me such an opportunity to share my knowledge with an interesting audience, and it was great connecting with all those attendees that we got the opportunity to chat and connect. Finally, thank you to my organisation IOV Labs for supporting my trip to the event.

However, if you like this article and want to encourage me to write more articles, you can donate to this ETH, USDC and USDT Address on the Ethereum network: 0xfd446002b2979559ef4Cd06e5DCC84bbCC6b49D3

I look forward to #OSCAFest23