My goal, vision for young Nigerians and Africans – Douglas Fordjour

With the population expected to hit over 8 billion in the next one year and African countries expecting to buckle up, Chairman of Lumiere Group International, Douglas Fordjour has charged Nigerian youths and their African counterparts to step up their game in creating value, saying they can’t afford to be passively involved.

According to him, The millennial generation has lived through the continent’s meteoric rise in mobile and internet penetration rates, adding that African youths are increasingly taking an active role in shaping their future.

In Accra, Nairobi, Cairo or Benguerir, fully fledged start-up scenes are disrupting how we think about African agriculture, industry, IT and sustainability even as he urged them to keep the intensity high if they want to dominate the emerging world of technology.

The trailblazer in the African Commodities and Trade fiancé sector further observed that gone are the days when a university education was just a stepping stone, strewing that it serves to encourage the demographic potential of youth, higher education in Africa must first and foremost help to shape the continent’s future.

Over the years, Fordjour has successfully executed projects across diverse industries, including infrastructure, telecommunication, transportation and logistics, energy, oil & gas, mining and construction. He is also passionate about adapting and localizing best practices from other regions to improve the economic prospects of Africa.

He pointed out that one must be passion-driven to transform his immediate environment and Africa at large, adding that Africa is blessed with abundant opportunities and resources that would remain untapped if those who live in the region don’t take advantage of the potentials before them.

Being an experienced and successful investment professional with more than 20 decades in various fields of life, maintained that the avalanche of investment opportunities young minds in Africa and beyond can tap into by developing their capacity to serve as the link between emerging markets and investors.

According to him, there are lots of projects that will spring up in the next few years as Africa has been identified as a fertile land for the rest of the world to invest, warning that if young people, especially entrepreneurs don’t rise to the occasion and develop their capacity to identify opportunities, they may miss the big moment that could transform their lives and the African region.

The financial expert who has worked in the UK, US and UAE, gaining valuable insights and skills in the global financial markets, said that he believes his many years in the London financial district and expertise in developing customer-centric and innovative investment and finance solutions will be of immense help to the country.