Over 4000 Ghanaian youth, last Friday, joined the maiden edition of the Vodafone Virtual Skills fair to be properly equipped in making informed career choices.

The online skills fair dubbed ‘LevelUp’ created a platform for astute Ghanaian specialists to share their experiences, challenges and opportunities in their chosen career path. The event also offered young men and women an opportunity to interact with expert speakers.

In an interview with the media at the event, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Vodafone Ghana, Patricia Obo-Nai, underscored the need for the youth to be equipped with the requisite technical skills to embrace the digital space.

“The world is changing at a fast pace, and the adoption of technology is moving even faster with the pandemic. So it is shocking to find out that whiles we are talking about youth unemployment, we still have vacancies in many companies like ours because we can’t find digital and technology skills to fill in the roles we have.

"And so, for us as an organisation, spending time bringing in amazing speakers to share their career journey and experience will help the youth in making the right decision.  

She added, “Speakers will also highlight the importance of building a career and acquiring new skills to inform the youth to make the right choices and have a straighten career path.”

Madam Obo-Nai further highlighted some initiatives her outfit has rolled out to connect the new generation to the new world of work.

“Vodafone has several initiatives that have been running for the youth; as a purpose-led organisation, we are interested in training the human capital of the country.

This initiative includes a discovery program where we train and equip the university graduate for over two years, after which we embed them in the organisations,” she said.

“We also have the reconnect programme where mothers who have taken a career break are allowed to come in, whether they worked for Vodafone in the past or not; it allows them to gradually get themselves back to work and prepare for the workplace.

"Lastly is the Vodafone apprentice programme, where we bring in young developers and give them exciting projects at Vodafone to help them prepare for the job market”, she added.

On her part, the Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, lauded Vodafone Ghana for coming up with such an initiative.