U.S. firm to train 50,000 Nigerian youths on competitive skills

By PHILOMINA ATTAH

A United States-Nigerian Technology Company, WRKR Technology Inc., has promised to train 50,000 Nigerians on its skills that would make them globally competitive for employment opportunities.

WRKR is a technology company that unlocks access to work opportunities, making it easier for people to securely store and share their skills and employment data.

Founder/CEO of WRKR Technology Inc, Mr Preston Obadan, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Saturday, said the training would be for both graduates and undergraduates in the country.

He added that the company was on a mission to equip 50,000 young people across Nigeria campuses, by assessing and upgrading their skills for existing jobs, and those yet to be created.

He said the aim was to reduce the level of unemployment in Nigeria and other African countries.

“We are Africa’s first workoutcomes company. Largely, what we do is providing skills and employment data by enabling companies to discover, recruit on board and manage talents faster.

“What we see in Africa is that we have a lot of issues centred around employment, from the unemployment rate in Nigeria and underemployment of people whose jobs can barely sustain.

“A company’s growth is measured by productivity, and if a person is not functioning optimally, it means there is no growth in your company.

“For us at WRKR, we are passionate about people, we are building technologies to drive this growth in people, enabling them to manage their skills and employment records better, giving them access to the kind of global opportunities and employment marketplace.”

Obadan said the company, in line with its mandate, had launched a programme called  Future Workforce, a one-stop-shop for young people.

He said the mission of the programme was to upgrade the skill set of 50,000 young people across universities in Nigeria, through relevant training, internships and work experiences.

He said the Programme was largely targeted at fresh graduates and undergraduates, to get access to the right set of tools and resources and enable them to take the global jobs.

“The future workforce programme is a youth employment initiative with WRKR Technology Inc, Nigerian Universities and private partners in the United States.

“The technology that we are building, our purpose is actually building people.

“In doing that, we need to understand this people’s problems, how to better address their problems.

“The government has been saying this for over two decades – skill acquisition programmes- how many are in existence now? Where are these skills?

“But to be honest, are these skills acquisition actually benefiting the community?

“For us at WRKR, we like to think we are for-profit for-benefit organisation and if the people that we are creating technology for are not able to be better, grow better, there is no point in going further.

“So, WRKR is a club-based mobile platform and basically, we enable employers and candidates to effectively share skills and employment data while also optimising the process of discovering, recruiting on board and managing talents.

“At the heart of what we do is people, and the future workforce programme is a multi stakeholder engagement between companies and institutions in Nigeria and the United States of America.

“This will enhance the productivity of young people and provide them with resources to better their chance of finding work now and the future,” he added.

The Programme Manager, Future Workforce, Daniel Oyekanmi, said the major aim of the firm was to solve job problems in Nigeria and other African countries, by training and upscaling people for jobs.

Oyekanmi said the training was free, as participants would also be given a career kit.

“We are training graduates for employers. We have a platform where employees meet, including interns.

“The training is free, our target is over 50 000 participants. We deliver a career kit, which a participant is to pay one dollar to get the kit.

“For example, we want NNPC to be able to hire talent at get-go and a right kind of talent as against putting a call for 1,000 then you have 10,000 or 20,000 people applying for the job.

“But if we have a process that streamlines, gives you the best candidate and also given the candidate the best kind of opportunity, this makes it easier,” he added.

He, however, advised those interested to apply online through https://www.futurenigeria.xyz/

He further stated that the company was scaling operation to other African countries towards the end of 2022. (NAN)