Digital youth empowerment

KARACHI:

Digital literacy is the ability to understand and use digital tools and technologies. This may be as basic as writing a report or article in Microsoft Word, but today we often think of it as the ability to use and manipulate software and hardware to meet our needs.

Essentially, this could be application development, data mining, building machine learning models or advancing artificial intelligence (AI) models.

Anything that interacts with the “digital world” requires digital literacy, but the rapid pace of technological development means that there is an ever-increasing demand for additional digital literacy.

For too many people, the digital world remains like a foreign language, strange until you learn it and study it and read it, understand it and use it fluently through experience.

It matters because many of the productivity gains and advances of the 21st century have been the result of advances in the digital domain. Encouraging and ensuring digital literacy means stronger, healthier and more prosperous societies and economies.

As the majority of Pakistan consists of a young population and the youth is our hope for the future of the planet, I would argue that today, not being digitally literate or competent is almost like not being able to speak a basic language to express yourself.

There is no doubt that the future is increasingly digital and any of our young people who do not have these skills will potentially lose out in the future economy, not to mention we all lose out as a society.

The same was said about English – if you cannot read and write in English, you lose access to the language of information and your ideas cannot reach as wide an audience.

In a globally connected world, digital is a single language that has currency everywhere. It breaks down many barriers, with work that can be done across borders and cultures. These skills are therefore absolutely essential for the future of our youth and for the future of our economies and societies.

And there is a huge need – most of the world is facing a shortage of IT talent at a time when the number of digital projects is growing rapidly.

I think digital skills should not be an option, but a basic universal educational right. Today, we don’t ask our children and young people “Do you want to take English lessons? Do you want to take a math class?’ We know these are fundamental to their well-being and the necessary skills to succeed in the global economy.

Reading Pakistan is called an emerging digital hub in the region

Digital skills are the same. They must be taught from a young age, and indeed in many advanced societies, this is the case. That education continues through middle and high school and digital skills become embedded elements in higher education because there is no field that is untouched today by the digital revolution.

While basic digital literacy must be ensured, educational institutions must also provide opportunities for youth to develop skills in rapidly accelerating fields of knowledge including robotics, artificial intelligence, automation, machine learning and I think in a few years will be added and the quantum computer in this list.

Educational institutions should be able to give their students the choice and opportunity to continue learning and delve into areas of passion. Artificial intelligence and data science should be treated as important as mathematics and physics.

Digital skills are a basic necessity to just function in today’s world. If one has a passion and willingness to learn, then I would highly recommend taking IT courses or enrolling in a computer science degree and specializing in a branch of knowledge of interest.

I would advise however that, like any field today, this will require a commitment to lifelong learning and continuous professional development.

Young people need to be aware that the pace of change is very fast, with knowledge becoming obsolete in just five years – there will be a need for continuous skills development.

However, the intellectual reward is there, the job opportunities are many and ever-growing, and I think there is a huge sense of fulfillment in working in a field where your work will have an impact on many, many users, from your workplace to potentially the whole The world.

Google, Amazon, Facebook (Meta), all revolutionized the way we interact and interact with things in our lives… all born of digital skills combined with a specific interest.

I would always advise young people to follow their passion and do what interests them – but I would add the caveat, develop digital skills no matter what. It is difficult today to succeed in any occupation, whatever your passion, if you do not have the necessary digital skills or digital literacy.

The competitive advantage for most companies lies in their digital capabilities, and I would say the same for people – in a world that lacks sufficient digitally skilled people, this will be your competitive advantage.

The author is the Global Chief Information Officer of the Aga Khan University

Published in The Express Tribune, December 25^u2023.

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