The challenges the Netherlands is facing and will continue to face in a Digitalizated economy.

Talent is Scarce and super expensive is the new talk of the town in the IT world nowadays; this problem is not going away anytime soon. The Netherlands is a country of 18Million people;? I am sure if it chooses to produce only for its own IT local consumption, it would be fine. The problem is when it decides to remain internationally competitive and feed into the global market demand. IT/Digitalization is the new global consumption that puts a lot of pressure on local resources that facilitate production, thereby making the IT human capital or resources at home,? scarce and expensive since the big corporations are willing to pay twice as much to have the best all to themselves. They have enough historical profit margin to cover it.?

The solution is not turning every dutch kid into an IT Wizard, like most academicians or business owners have been advising in different seminars and conferences across the Netherlands. Instead, we need some of those kids to turn into people who will facilitate other sectors of production too, which are crucial to our core of a stable societal being. At least for now, until we have robots that can fully take over the logic and production aspects, such as Research, Medicine, Agriculture, etc. Still, we are not yet there, and current production and survival are essential to get to the next stem of future innovation.

The other alternatives will be for the Netherlands to not participate in the international market or reduce its participation. But that will mean the EU losing its grip on the global power and having competing countries or aliases dictate its well-being; If you are not playing in it or playing well, someone else is playing for you. I said the situation would not change because of the increasingly global market entry due to globalization/digitalization and middle-class rise in developing countries which I like to call recovery economies, which give rise to global consumption and that is increasing daily.

What is the Solution?

The solution is through global or local inclusion of all available human resources; with a national focus, there is scarcity, but with a global focus, there are untapped needed senior IT Talents in places like Africa where no one is looking at yet. And do not get me started with we have done this with India before. Africa is not India. Most countries in Africa are in the same time zone as the Netherlands, they speak excellent English, and the cultural proximity is there, meaning working communication is seamless and easy.?

The solution is a genuine change of view and openness to explore these untapped human resources while extending the opportunities to places where they will never have been, in return spreading economic growth there. At the same time, they contribute their talent to the dutch economy abundantly as it will remain internationally competitive in its global export and production of digitalization. Thus, creating a win-win balance on both sides, in equal partnership, everyone contributes something and everyone benefits. Moreover, security can be guaranteed with the proper infrastructure and process in places such as those we provide to Senior IT Experts from Africa that we connect with Dutch companies. This includes a laptop, high-speed internet, and a decent workplace; you can access most senior IT professionals within 24hrs at a considerable price reduction. Senior IT Experts are people with a minimum of 5 years of production experience with relevant academic backgrounds and certifications to their specializations.

Local inclusion means activating the minority citizens, especially those in the poor or forgotten neighbourhood, enabling them with these in-demand skills. They can be trained within 6 Months and given a year internship to give a soft landing. After that, they practice what has been learned in a working environment and build their portfolio, increasing their employability chances. We are doing this at Zwart Academy, where we plan to give cybersecurity training to impoverished youth in Den Haag and the Rotterdam area.

The question is how will you get involved and not when because if you are not, you are missing out on other competing countries and companies that are getting involved and tapping in these untapped resources. If you are hesitating, we can give you a senior IT developer to work with you for free for a month, and if you do not like the collaboration, you do not need to pay for the month; that is how confident we are about this corporation.

#technology #netherlands #africa #Innovation #zwarttech #zwarttalent