We aim to prepare African youths for emerging opportunities, innovation globally -Adeyemi

SARMLife Digital Skills Training (SDST) is a nonprofit initiative focused on empowering and developing youths in Africa with in-demand digital skills to make them self-reliant and contribute to Nigeria’s and the continent’s growth. In this interview with Ruth Adeyemi, a Search Engine Optimisation professional and the chief executive officer of SARMLife, a digital marketing organisation shares the company’s plans for the Nigerian and African markets in terms of talent development. She also talked about how the company plans to empower and uplift thousands of youths in Africa through this transformative initiative. Pius Dukor brings the excerpt:

The digital learning space is today awash with several digital training products. Tell us about SARMLife Digital Skills Training; is it just another solution out there?

The SARMLife Digital Skills Training (SDST) is not just another programme out there. It is an annual digital skills initiative that started four years ago and the goal is to transform passionate learners into digital economy leaders. The idea to start this training was conceived after my National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) after I participated in the Google Data Skills for Africa programme.

The level of data skill received back then at the programme inspired me to reproduce such level of training to young people in Africa so that through this digital skills training, they can be empowered and trained to learn data skills to boost their employability prospects and not only be able to contribute to their financial economy and that of their families, but also in the long be able to contribute to the national financial economy.

The goal of this training has never been about making money, it is just a give-back programme to transform the digital economy in Africa by creating a new generation of tech-savvy professionals who are equipped with in-demand digital skills.

What is your assessment of the SEO industry in Africa in 2024 and what are your expectations for 2025?

We have search engine optimisation professionals in Africa, but they are more on the down low. They don’t have a physical brand that can be trusted because they are not producing content that shows a good understanding of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

In other climes like the United States or the United Kingdom, SEO professionals create their profiles, have a website and they are building their brands as professional brands.

My goal and future projection is to mobilise more African SEO professionals who are determined and focused on creating unique and engaging brands for themselves. I will also want to see more women in the SEO space.

How affordable are the digital training services that you offer?

In everything that I do, excellence has always been at the center of it. Since the inception of the training about four years ago, the initiative which is a nonprofit programme has never been about the money.

The training is very affordable especially when you consider the level of expert coaches that engage in the training. The whole idea is to give students the very best education when it comes to digital skills. I want them to learn from the top professionals in different skills.

For the SARMLife digital skills training for this year which is starting around March 2025, participants are required to pay 15,000 naira as a registration fee. This amount is small compared to the level of training they will be getting during the programme. I know that learning a digital skill in this new age, cost a lot of money, but with our digital skills training, participants would be learning seven to eight in-demand digital skills for just 15,000.

One thing I have learned from my years of coaching is that when people get an opportunity for free, they don’t take it seriously. The whole point of asking participants to make a commitment fee is so that we can compensate the coaches for their time and efforts.

How can the Nigerian government and other stakeholders leverage digital skills training innovation for grooming the next generation of leaders?

I noticed that some state governments in Nigeria are already investing in skill acquisition for their citizens. However, such skill acquisition programmes are usually centered on hair making, shoe making, bag making etc. These are physical skills, but you are aware that the world is going digital; we are in a more tech-savvy generation. So there is a need for governments to move from physical skills to digital skills.

Our goal at SARMLife is to work with State and Federal governments in a capacity where we can share with them the impact and the need to digitally train individuals to contribute to the reduction of unemployment rates.

Note that one person who is empowered with a digital skill can, in turn, empower many people by expanding job creation in the country.

What have been your greatest challenges doing this type of training business in Africa and what are the possible solutions?

One of the first challenges that we faced when we started this training journey was that people thought that we were scammers. They were wondering how we could teach several data skills for such a small amount of money.

Modern digital training is very expensive, so a lot of people were wondering how we can train people in seven to eight different digital skills for as low as 10,000 to 15,000 naira. It makes no sense, especially for people who know the value of such training.

So with ample explanation over the years, we have been able to build a level of trust among the initial doubters and win them over by ensuring that we deliver quality digital skills training as we promised.

How are you responding to emerging competition in digital skill innovations on the continent? Is this an issue for you at all?

Most of the digital skills institutes charge an arm and a leg for people to learn skills because their goal is to make money by training people, but our training is different because our goal is to give back to our communities in Nigeria, Ghana and other African countries.

I have never really felt the impact of direct competition because we are in our lane making change happen and impacting our continent.

Last year, we reached out to other digital marketing companies to engage them in a collaborative conversation, because I believe in the power of collaboration than competition.

Where do you see this training in the next five years?

In the next five years, we plan to move the training from virtual to physical or adopt a hybrid model to expand to more African countries, particularly non-English speaking countries.

We plan to accommodate more languages by including African countries that speak French and other languages because we want to be able to make more impact. We will expand our languages, expand our reach, and then see how we can organise the training twice a year.