New Skills for A New Tomorrow

Across most parts of the Middle East, Turkey and Africa region, the month of July holds a special place for students and young adults. It marks the end of a busy academic year and the start of well-deserved summer vacation - or a welcome mid-term winter break for those in the southern hemisphere.

It turns out that July also holds enormous significance for youth worldwide. Since 2014, the United Nations has celebrated July 15 as World Youth Skills Day , which highlights the importance of equipping young people with skills for employment and entrepreneurship. It offers opportunities for open dialogue between young people, technical and vocational training institutions, organizations and policymakers.

Today, with all the social and economic shifts impacting job opportunities, our youth find themselves in a challenging position when it comes to finding employment. Fixing the current talent gap through upskilling, while also redefining the future of work, feature high on every decision maker’s agenda.

According to a World Economic Forum report , successful upskilling/reskilling of the workforce could boost global productivity by 3% by 2030, growing global GDP by at least $6.5 trillion and adding 5.3 million jobs worldwide. And then closer to home, research indicates that more than 40% of the workforce in the region are under the age of 30, who will become the future workforce.

But what are these skills that will define the future of our youth and consequently how they work, live, and thrive?

A?new report? from the World Economic Forum states that major job growth will come from seven professional areas: healthcare, engineering and cloud computing, sales marketing and content, data and AI, green jobs, people and culture and specialized project managers. McKinsey & Company , on the other hand, suggests the demand for manual and physical skills, as well as basic cognitive ones, will decline, but the demand for technological, social, emotional, and higher cognitive skills will grow. They call these the 'distinct elements of talent' or DELTAs - as they represent a combination of skills and attitudes.

Despite the ambiguity of what the future holds, it is encouraging to see progress made on this front across the META region. Today most governments, through a joint public-private sector undertaking, are already investing in empowering a future-ready workforce.

·??????For instance, The Ministry of Artificial Intelligence in the UAE recently introduced 'The National Program for Coders' to make the UAE the world's foremost destination for coders and future innovators. In Feb 2022, Coders HQ, in collaboration with Dell Technologies, launched the ‘AI for Kids ’ initiative in the UAE, to build a new generation of coders from school students by introducing them to coding languages and the basics of AI to sharpen their analytical and logical skills.

·??????Looking at other countries in the GCC, the Saudi government also announced a series of programs totaling more than $1.2Bn aimed at improving the digital skills of 100,000 Saudi youth by 2030 with a focus on cybersecurity, programming, AI, and gaming. And then in Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, governments are running National Skills Programs to boost digital skills and build the workforce of the future.

·??????In Egypt, as part of its ‘Digital Egypt’ strategy, the government is undertaking a series of major investments in ICT education. Developed to strengthen and diversify the nation’s economy, a key component of the Digital Egypt project is to ensure that the country’s large youth population have the technical skills they need to excel in a tech-focused job market. The initiatives are led by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology as part of its efforts to develop the local economy.

·??????In Turkey, according to WEF , it must reskill more than 21 million workers to meet the demands of the future of work – while its new ‘Closing the Skills Gap Accelerator Program ’ aims to help governments and businesses prepare their youth for the future of work.

·??????In South Africa, organizations continue to show unfulfilled demand for talent in the technology sector, with the sector having the most demand for deeper and more complex digital skills. In fact, today, one of South Africa's most pressing issues is youth unemployment. As digital skills are critical for future jobs, the National Development Plan 2030 focuses on addressing unemployment through improved access to STEM learning and use of digital technologies.?

·??????In countries across Emerging Africa like Morocco and Kenya, digital transformation continues to accelerate, and the continent will need more human resources with adequate digital skills. Initiatives such as Digital Morocco 2025 and Kenya’s National Digital Master Plan , include collaborating with the private sector to address ICT skills and talent development gaps.

At Dell, we believe technology isn't a luxury but a necessity. Even today, millions of children don’t have access to the technology and education they need. This impacts all of us – limiting the world’s collective power. In our ever-evolving quest for economic and technological progress, we need to ensure that the skills of the future workforce are being developed at a parallel scale and speed. It’s also why projects such as Dell Technologies Solar Community Hubs , which we announced in partnership with Computer Aid , Intel and Microsoft , in May 2022, is so important. The hubs will provide digital skills to further education and open economic opportunities for the community. Members can also access technical skills training, entrepreneurship support, education and career guidance, and revenue-generating services to support job opportunities and financial sustainability.

Ultimately, it comes down to one simple premise. Technology is a powerful tool for breaking down barriers and creating new possibilities for younger generations, wherever they are in the world.

So today, on World Youth Skills day, let us collectively - industry, government, academia, and society - prepare our youth for a sustainable, digital future that’s worth striving for.