INVESTING IN AFRICA

It’s been more than a year since Google announced its plan to teach 1 million young Africans digital skills. That goal was met before the year was up. The goal for this year is to train another 1 million youngsters. We caught up with Bunmi Banjo, Google’s

Google’s Bunmi Banjo on the company’s training programme for young Africans

So many young people are looking for work. My original role at Google was to help small and medium businesses use our products to advertise online, but many of them didn’t have time to get to this. I thought, why not train young people to become digital agencies to help businesses? It would grow the businesses, which would help the economy. So that’s how the programme came about.

Africa is the only place where we trained this many people in a short period of time, in person.

Google offers training across the globe, but we’ve adapted that training.

I am very happy that we reached the goal,

but I’m just so aware of how much we still need to do. By 2020, we’ll have about 500 million young people of working age in Africa. So if we’re training 100 here, 200 there, we’re not really doing much. We needed to start thinking about how to reach millions.

What makes me happy

is that we’re coming into contact with people who say, “I got a job because of your programme!” A guy from Limpopo, Anorth Mabunda, came across this programme and decided to bring it to his community. So he did the training. In just one month he trained 5 000 people at 20 events, because he is so driven to pass on the knowledge. That’s positive proof that we’re doing the right thing.

The internet is a great leveller.

No matter how much you have in your pocket, you should be able to access the web and use it to grow, however you define growth for yourself. At Google, our primary mission is to make the information of the world accessible to everyone. We’ll go wherever the opportunity is. If a local government says they want to train people in their community, we’ll do that, wherever they are.

People ask if this is charity,

but for us it’s a business investment in Africa. There are upfront costs, but we believe if businesses are using the web for growth, our business will thrive too.

There’s a really deep thirst for the training.

Our classrooms are usually oversubscribed – today, in Durban, every chair was taken. A lot of people are surprised at how much they have at their fingertips. They can learn so many skills online for free. And for businesses, there are so many ways to use the web to find more customers – without spending money.

We’re aware that connectivity isn’t always great

and that not everybody

‘Think about what it is about your life that you want as a lasting legacy, and work your way back from that.’

has a smartphone, but soon this will be a non-issue. So the mindset is, let’s get the boat prepared because this wave is going to happen anyway.

Yes, there is the cost of data,

but we say to young people, rather than spend all your time on social media, why not use that time to pick up skills or advertise something you’re doing? Anyone who has access to the net can go to g.co/digital skills and learn the content. There are 89 videos – about six hours of content. If you don’t have much data, just read the transcripts, then do the assessments. And at the end you can get a certificate of proficiency. We’re planning to make that content available on a memory device so it’s not necessary to use data to access it.

It’s really important to know who you are

and what is important to you before you start looking for a job. Often, people go after jobs they think would look good on their CV. Whatever you spend your time on, try to tie it to the ultimate goal. Not every job is going to be your dream job, but it should be getting you on that path, either in terms of what you’re going to learn on the job or how you’re going to contribute.

It’s a little morbid, but imagine your memorial service:

Think about what it is about your life that you want as a lasting legacy, and work your way back from that. When I did this exercise many years ago, a lot of people I knew were going for high-paying jobs. But I realised that I wanted to do work that was going to help me impact people’s lives.

I always encourage young people to go after what they enjoy doing,

because they’ll figure out how to make it economically successful if they really love doing it. I know that’s a hard message if you come from a background where the finances aren’t there. But today, the internet offers more ways for people to be creative about how to use what they do well to earn an income.

It is possible that things are not as easy for women as they are for men.

The same thing with being black; the data suggests it might be tougher for you to get to where you want to be than it is for somebody else. I cannot really speak about South Africa [Bunmi lives in Nigeria], but my approach has always been to focus on what want to do and how best to get there, and what resources I have at my disposal. We all have resources. Sometimes it’s internal – your personality, your drive, what you know. Sometimes it’s external – your connections, for example. But whatever your resources are, focus on using them to achieve your goals. For me it’s always been easier to focus on what I have going for me than what I have against me.

There are times when you get treated a certain way,

and you wonder if you got that because you’re a woman or because you’re black – or, in the US, because my accent is African. But the truth is you don’t know people’s intentions, so I try not to think about it too much. A lot of times when people treat you differently, they might not even know they’re doing it, so you have an opportunity to educate them to see things a little differently. This often happens with men. And when I suggest another angle from a woman’s perspective, they say, thanks for telling me that – I didn’t know that. But it requires us to be open and stand up for ourselves, while also being empathetic.

I’m doing a PhD in organisational leadership

with a focus on business growth in Africa. Across the continent, I’ve seen a lot of exciting business start-ups, but they usually fail within a year or two. What I’m basing my dissertation on is helping businesses figure out the best way to sustain themselves, given the kind of environment they do business in.

I wish I could tell you I swim a few laps a day or that I run.

But one thing I do is try to make sure I sleep. I’m not one of those who think they can function on four hours of sleep.

I wish I saw more of a sense of urgency.

I just feel that we all – and this is not just a government issue – need to understand that we’re at a place where we can achieve so much to impact our communities but we need to act quickly and effectively. I think sometimes we just let opportunities slide away rather than take advantage of them.