The programme is being piloted in Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria.

The conference, being hosted by Ghana, brought industry players, investors, creators, universities and high level strategic partners to discuss the initial outcome of the programme and also to find ways of scaling up the outcomes into viable businesses.

The  platform also offered participants the opportunity to focus on broad issues, challenges and opportunities facing higher education sector in the area of employment and entrepreneurship and to develop new ideas and solutions to solve youth unemployment.

Its objective was to close the gap between job seekers and job creators for the African youth.

Relevant

It was also to celebrate the resilience of African Youth as they continually strived to remain relevant in an ever-changing macro -economic landscape.

The programmes officer of British Council, Solomon Domayen Antumwini, said the IAU was created by the Council in 2021 on the back of COVID-19 pandemic, to review the curriculum and promote the teaching of innovation among tertiary institutions in the region.

"The goal of the IAU programme is to strengthen the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem and improve student employability outcomes in sub-saharan African universities through the promotion and capacitation of mutually beneficial partnerships", he said.

Mr Antumwini said inputs and contribution from the pilot programme would project mechanisms for the next stage which was to be scaled effectively across more countries to reach more graduating students and provide more opportunities for them to celebrate generational businesses.

Many universities, he said, had agreed to evolve teaching practices that enable students to think outside the box and become self-starters.

Leapfrog

By paring universities in Africa and the UK, Mr Antumwini said IAU would catalyse the development of entrepreneurship curriculums customised to each country's unique situation and economic needs in a bid to leapfrog the creation of generational businesses across the continent.

This would, therefore, deal with the rapid growing youth population, where many youths were confronted by high levels of unemployment and underemployment.

Mr Antumwini said the universities had a role to play as catalyst for change and drivers of economic growth in their various communities beyond providing a platform for learning, research and knowledge creation.

"Through their academic programmes and international partnerships universities can provide graduates with knowledge and skills to contribute to the growth of new and existing companies ", he added.

Degrees

The Executive Chairman of Sakfos Holdings, Dr Abu Sakara, said the world was in the age of entrepreneurship and that degrees no longer earned jobs.

Stating that employments were no longer available in the public sector, Dr Sakara urged the youth to look at the private sector where opportunities abounded, especially in the technological age.

The universities, he added, must become places where students learned how to think and not to get a degree.

"If you can be thought to learn how to think, you can solve a lot of problems" he indicated.

The conference, he said, was important as it gave participants the tools and the insights to adapt to the new environment of work, that was becoming entrepreneurs.

"Those who adapt to change are those who will soar like eagles", he encouraged them.

Leave legacies

The Vice- President of Kosmos Energy Innovation Hub, Joe Mensah, encouraged the youth to look at the Agricultural sector which had a lot of opportunities for the youth.

He noted that with the needed education, experience and exposure to apply innovations, the African youths would become great entrepreneurs in the world.

"The country has everything, all that is needed is the leadership.

This is our moment, this is our time to flip it and to make a difference. Get the businesses, employ people and leave a legacy", he said.