Microsoft chief urges youth, SMEs to tap into online resources to drive productivity

Increasing youth employment and enhancing small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) development through Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) to boost the continent’s productivity and alleviate poverty were some of the key issues at the just-concluded African Development Bank meetings. Business Times’ Ben Gasore caught up with Microsoft’s 4Afrika Initiative general manager Fernando de Sousa on the sidelines of the meeting. He explained how technology could play a big role in addressing Africa’s productivity and poverty challenges, as well as how Rwandan youth and SMEs can tap into the opportunities ICT presents: How can ICT be used to boost productivity and alleviate poverty, especially in rural areas? Addressing the productivity question first of all means focusing on developing the relevant skills. It is also about knowing how to use digital devices and the Internet; it is about exposing young people to a world that is much bigger, with vast opportunities. In the agriculture sector for example, technology drives high productivity because farmers today know where they can fetch the best prices through the use of their mobile phones. Instead of vending their produce by the road side, farmers today have ready markets and buyers. Also, when entrepreneurs embrace the Internet as a business tool, they are able to find and woo new clients or track their shipping to ensure their goods arrive on time. That’s part of promoting productivity, and Rwanda has made huge progress in this area considering it’s a landlocked country. Local logistics management systems are now connected across the region, which eases business processes and boosts productivity. From a poverty alleviation perspective, using ICTs is not just creating jobs. If you are semi-skilled or are illiterate and you are doing a menial job, your ability to generate income for your family is limited. On the other hand, if you acquire ICT skills, you can be able to add more value to whatever you do and earn more money. Ultimately, if you can employ someone else, it means your business has expanded and is able to create opportunities for others. How can Rwanda get the remaining part of its population to acquire the basic English and ICT skills to become competitive? Microsoft started a project where we will be teaching basic English, digital and business literacy skills using online training platforms. We are going to work with the government and vocational training schools. It is an online portal, where we also encourage employers to post job opportunities and coach young people. The portal has training content; so a person can read and find a training programme for a skill that matches with an advertised job or those that can enable them start their own company. How can SME operators who have no time to attend formal classes, but need to access better markets, finance and develop partnerships? For SMEs, their target market is only as big as people who can walk into their shop or those they can reach from a limited space. We found that creating a cloud-based SME business infrastructure solves this challenge. If we teach entrepreneurs how to create an online presence to market their products; it means we are expanding their reach. Typically, we could teach some SMEs skills like web design so that they can train others at a lower cost. We do similar trainings, including business insurance, marketing, managerial skills, accounting, payroll preparation and HR management. We also teach them how to write business plans and source finance from banks. In a nutshell, instead of saying come to a class and we teach you, we are saying no, go online, there is somebody there that Microsoft is sponsoring, who can sell to you the service at a low cost and enable you establish new connections and grow your enterprise. Has the initiative started in Rwanda yet? We have so far built the infrastructure platform that can support these services; it takes about four months to build local services. However, we have started to interview small businesses to understand what they do. We want to find out from them if they would be willing to offer their services to a bigger community by going online. In February and March, we conducted the first interviews in Rwanda and results were released a fortnight ago, indicating a good opinion on the service eco-system in the country. As the next step, we will invite some of them and see what strategic partnerships can be formed. But SMEs must understand that going online could greatly boost their businesses.