The youth have been encouraged to use technology to solve societal problems and also create wealth to help improve upon the local economy.

Speaking at a digital start-up summit at Wa on Saturday, a Software Developer, Mr Abubakari Sherifdeen explained that technology had become the bedrock of society with which people solved development and general livelihood problems and called on the youth in the Upper West Region to move along with the global wave of technology.

He said people were innovatively transforming the world with the creation of demand-driven mobile and computer applications that were easily accessible by the masses and challenged the youth in the region and by extension the country to get involved in information technology education to help them become innovative thinkers as well.

Dubbed the Wa Startup Summit, the event which was organised by Yison Tech Hub, a technology oriented organisation in Wa was on the theme; “Mobile Application for Sustainable Development and Jobs Creation in the Wa Municipality”.

It sought to afford some selected trainees of the organisation, the opportunity to pitch their business ideas on digital applications they intended to develop to assist livelihood in the region.

Presentations of business ideas were made by five teams; each comprising four enterprising individuals who were guided to identify key societal challenges and create digital applications to help solve them.

Mr Sherifdeen, one of the judges at the event commended the youth for the innovation and expressed confidence that it would help boost the local economy of the region.

A Chief Technology Officer of Noni-Hub, a technology-driven organisation at Wa, Mr Mudasir Issah added that in developing applications to solve societal problems, developers should not be too money-conscious but focus on contributing to the well-being of society.

He explained that focusing so much on income would make the developer lose sight of the functionality of the application.

He also encouraged potential app developers to consider making their applications user friendly, accessible and profitable such that people would be encouraged to patronise them.

For his part, Chief Executive Officer of Idea path Consult, Mr Lukeman Tahiru stated that the limited number of decent jobs for university graduates recently, has challenged the youth to acquire alternative skills aside formal education to be able to create employment for themselves.

“Technology offers that alternative skill we seek and it is one of the easiest avenues to secure employment and also advance the course of society”, he said.

He called on the youth to take advantage of the organisation in the municipality and enrol to undergo training in information technology to ensure that they were par with their counterparts in other parts of the country.

At the end of the event, an all-female group who called themselves Tech-Avangers emerged winners with their business proposal on creating a mobile application to link fashion designers to textile manufacturers and prospective clients.