The Coronavirus pandemic continues to create a high level of uncertainty in the economy of Nations across the world. There has been so many news of job losses, businesses folding up, salary cuts and suspended contracts in most organizations in Nigeria. These outcomes have left so many young professionals with uncertainties and a lot of questions in their minds
The Young Progressive Professionals Network in an attempt to address these questions and provide guidance to the thousands of young professionals in Nigeria and across the world, provided an avenue for through an online conference for people to ask questions and constituted a panel of 5 professionals from Nigeria and diaspora to provide answers to those questions.
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The first edition of the Young Progressive Professionals Network conference themed “Driving Sustainable Business Performance in a Post COVID-19 World” held on the 2nd of May 2020, online via Zoom. This session was facilitated by 5 Young panelist, Muyiwa Olufon, Cyber Defence Executive, Booz Allen Hamilton, Amsterdam; Emmanuel Titus, Digital Transformation Consultant, ENSTOA, USA; Opeyemi Makinwa, Country Head, Reserve Sales Diageo; Tochi Ginigeme, High-end Sales Manager, ABInBev; Samuel Akinlotan, Talent Acquisition Partner, Sterling Bank Plc and moderated by Michael Nwoseh, Head, Strategy and Growth, Data Science Nigeria
One of the highlights from this session was the question asked by someone in the audience who said “Post COVID-19 will disrupt so many things, what is the assurance that the future will shift towards IT and what’s the sustainability. One of our Panelist, Muyiwa Olufon answered by saying, “One of the best indicators of the future, is always the present. We have seen how every single sector has leveraged IT during this COVID-19 period. For example, Education is going via distance learning, Health Care is being delivered via Telemedicine, Payments are done via contactless payments, Bots are delivering food across the world and everybody is looking for alternatives to their existing business models. What is common amongst this trend and across these sectors is Technology. It’s providing alternatives and allowing businesses to run.
IT will disrupt a lot and I can give a level of assurance that the future will have no choice than to leverage technology a lot more than they are doing now, because the ways of working will probably change permanently. In terms of sustainability there are a lot or research which suggest leveraging digital transformation and moving to a more technology focused mode of business, is actually going to reduce your cost compared to not doing that. We can see that today in organizations leveraging teleworking, reducing cost of electricity in their offices, reducing operating cost that traditionally, they will have to on-board if not for technology. The future will definitely shift and leverage technology a lot more. We have seen practically every sector having to move towards IT and with no choice but to stay there”
Please see link the YouTube link below to access a video on the full conference held on Zoom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kIRcSka4zs
About Young Progressive Professionals Network
The Young Progressive Professionals Network is a platform for young professionals, entrepreneurs, business owners, and thought leaders who are interested in expanding their networks and meeting with like-minded individuals. This group was established in 2020 and seeks to lend its voice to the conversations on issues affecting young professionals by creating a platform where a group of like minds can meet and collectively provide help to each other, in such a way that, whatsoever change we strive to achieve, the solutions provided is from young professionals to young professions.
