Delta Afrik Boss Canvasses Capacity Building, Mentorship for Young Engineers

The Managing Director, Delta Afrik, Mr. Akinwunmi Odumakinde has stressed the need for young engineers to take advantage of emerging future trends and ensure that they build their capacity and have people that will mentor them to greatness.

Ogunmakinde made this known during the maiden edition of the south-west town and gown Zoom mentoring/career fair for young engineers, with the theme, ‘Industry-focused Capacity Building’, organised by the Association of Professional Women Engineers (APWEN) and sponsored by Worley Foundation, Australia.

It was aimed at bridging the employability gap between young female engineering graduates and the industry, as well as create a pool of ready-now female engineers for the industry, among other objectives.

He advised them to pursue their dreams and ensure that they are equipped with the right skills that will make them compete favourably in an emerging society.

In his keynote address, he stressed the importance of capacity building, saying that the labour market is saturated with unemployed graduates because they lack the basic skill sets such as communication, confidence and ability to compete, among others.

“As an engineer, you need to build your capacity through self-improvement and benchmark your skill set, you need to put in place a proper implementation plan and learn new things that further enhance capacity building.

“The future is now, you must be prepared, push forward and embrace mentoring for a lasting impact. Remember if you cannot see it, you cannot have it. You must have a mission and a vision, and identify a new market.”

He expressed concern about the percentage of women engineers, saying that they are in the minority and occupy about 22 per cent in the country due to the instability of government policy and most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic which has affected how work is being done.

While commending APWEN for bridging the employability gap through the town and gown initiative, he appealed to the members to identify problems in the industry and profer solutions to them, as well as mentor young engineers by giving them the platform to make impact.

The Governor of Osun State, Mr. Adegboyega Oyetola, who declared the programme open, described the online edition as noble, adding that mentoring and capacity building are the basis of a sustainable future and way to go in bridging the transformation gap between the classroom and the industry.