21st Century not for jobs, but entrepreneurship, robotics – NBCC

The 21st Century is not for job search but for creativity, self-dependence, entrepreneurship and robotics, the Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce has said.

According to Adedapo Adelegan, president and chairman of council, NBCC, the Nigerian youth must realise that job search was becoming archaic all over the world and should think of how to help themselves.

“The 21st Century is not for jobs; it is a robotic century,” said Adelegan, in his maiden press conference in Lagos.

“We don’t need to train students to get jobs, but we need to give them the capacity to become job creators,” he said.

Across the globe robots and machines are fast replacing labour at factories, building sites, farms and shops. Last October, the South Korean government handed Samsung a multi-million dollar investment to develop robots that could carry out complex tasks normally reserved for human fingers.

Business Insider quoted Ron Shaich, founder and CEO of Panera Bread, as saying that “a tech revolution is coming, and it will be bad news for many workers.”

“Labor is going to go down,” Shaich added.

Nigeria is not immune to the wave of robotics blowing across the world.

The new NBCC boss, therefore, said President Muhammadu Buhari should glamorise agriculture so as to make it interesting to the youth, adding that farming remained Nigeria’s key escape route in the face of oil price crash and economic diversification drive.

He said entrepreneurship was key to Nigeria’s economic diversification quest, adding that that there was the need to invest in vocational education in the country to enhance entrepreneurship and boost start-ups.

“But there is need for a strong economic team that will send a signal to the world,” Adelegan further said, while responding to a question on Buhari’s economic team.

“President Buhari should look outside his economic team and need not limit his team to his cabinet,” he added.

ODINAKA ANUDU