I remember a couple of semesters ago, when I was in my hostel with my roommates, everyone of us glued to our Smartphone and blackberry phones chatting, surfing the internet, then I wondered to myself how wonderful life has been with the advent of the internet. Last week, I attended a student summit last week Thursday 16th of July, which was organized by Swiftthink at the Muson Center in Onikan, the seminar was tagged “The Edge: Driving a Digital Economy”. Key speakers were the emerging giants in the internet industry in Nigeria, they include Opeyemi Awoyemi the founder of Jobberman, Etop Ikpe the founder of Dealdey, Lanre Aina Business Development management for Google, Kabelo Makwane the country manager for Microsoft, was not there in person but talked to us via teleconferencing,. The crux of their talk was the future, how our socio-economy have been greatly influenced by the internet and keying into it.

Then as the event ended and I was on my way home then it struck me. This is it. This is the future. It is high time we key into the digital space. Does it not amaze you how our lives now depend on the digital space?  How we hurry to get money to buy the next data plan before it expires or finishes. How we update ourselves on the next MTN, GLO or Airtel cheats. Jobs, foods, transport, registration of forms, deliveries anything is now based online. You don’t have to stress yourself in learning how to tie a head gear or knot a tie. There are now apps on Google play and blackberry world which you can download and learn anything from.

You want to learn how to cook certain meals? It’s online. Different tech companies now promote young and aspiring Africans who have ideas to build apps and certain inventions by organizing competitions. These are companies who have already realized that the future lies on the internet. In our various tertiary institutions we now have E- portals where we register for courses and where results are been uploaded you don’t have to run all the way from your hostel to check a result anymore. Right now in some universities in Africa students don’t have to go to classes, all they have to do is to log on to the course they have for that very hour and they are logged into the classroom. They receive their lectures anywhere they may be.

We are also gradually getting to the level of paperless offices, where we no longer need to shuffle papers anymore everything papers that needs ‘shuffling’ would be done online. Our CVs are now uploaded online; interviews are now conducted via Skype, you can work from your home by registering your skills in sites such as Upwork, Elance, Fiverr where you can make cool money. The next careers are now online; blogging, website designing, photoshopping,  building of apps, auto cad, 3D animation graphic, software development etc. Our smart phones and computers should be more than just tools for watching youtube and movies or just tweeting, facebooking or whatsapping, it should be an avenue for creativity because the future is in our hands; it’s just a click away. I end this piece with the words of Etop Ikpe the founder of Dealdey “ the future is online, so don’t wait to be told how it is going to be, get online and begin to do something now”.