Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu, CEO, Tony Elumelu Foundation at MISK Global Forum, Riyad, Saudi Arabia

CEO, Tony Elumelu Foundation, Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu, urged youths gathered at the Misk Global Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to imbibe a job creating mentality for success in the future. This year’s theme “Work Reworked” focuses on discovering the new trends and transformation in the world of work, regardless of location or socio-economic divide.

While speaking on the theme “Dinosaur or Future-Fit? Careers in a Post-Job Era”, Ifeyinwa emphasised the role entrepreneurship plays in educating the youth for the jobs of the future.

She said: “Young people everywhere realise that the world we are living in is not the world that the educational system is preparing them for.”

“The educational system is preparing them for a job seeking mentality but the young of today need to have a job creating mentality; not just creating jobs for themselves but creating jobs for others, and so entrepreneurship is key.”

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She stated that this notion and the belief in the potential of entrepreneurship drives the commitment of the Tony Elumelu Foundation – an African based and private sector led philanthropy founded by African investor and philanthropist, Tony O. Elumelu – to empower African entrepreneurs.

She said: “This is why at the Tony Elumelu Foundation, we have committed $100million to identify, train, mentor and fund 10,000 African entrepreneurs across all 54 African countries in 10 years, By the end of this year, we would have mentored and funded over 9000 entrepreneurs.”

The Tony Elumelu Foundation has focused its impact on propelling young African entrepreneurs and their businesses from startup to scale up with the goal that they create jobs and revenue, two critical factors necessary to break the cycle of poverty on the continent and prepare Africa for the near future.

Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu encouraged the audience to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset. According to her: “Entrepreneurship is not just about starting a business. To be successful, you need to have an entrepreneurial mindset”.

Other high-level speakers on her panel include HRH Princess Aljohara AlSaud, Henning Larsen, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Dr. Badr AlBadr, Misk Foundation, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Ezequiel Vedana da Rosa, UN Young Leader for SDGs, Brazil; and moderated by Riad Hamade, Bloomberg News, UAE. The MISK Global Forum is an initiative of Misk Foundation, a non-profit philanthropy established by H.R.H. Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman to discover, develop and empower Saudi youth to become active participants in the knowledge economy.