For Florence Atunwa 4 Years Nurturing Nigeria's Next Generation Of Digital Talent Have Been An Exciting OneFlorence Atunwa Olumodimu is a Marketing Communications expert, image and personal branding consultant, digital marketing strategist, speaker, and trainer who is passionate about using the digital space for common good. Your support matters. Sustain independent journalism in Nigeria – contribute to Legit.ng. Known affectionately as the #ContentNinja! She is Digify Africa's Program Director in Nigeria. In this interview with legit.ng, she shares her 20 years’ journey from a top brand manager to helping young unemployed graduates find their path. Who is Florence Atunwa Olumodimu? I am a Marketing Communications consultant that has worked with a variety of groups, including young, women, SMEs, schools, government parastatals, and foreign organizations, to name a few. I have largely worked on projects that grow brands while also having a social effect and relevance. She has actively engaged on initiatives in ICT, youth development, knowledge transfer, and branding of businesses of all kinds during the previous eight years. Recommended for you BREAKING: Court sends Okorocha's ex-commissioner to prison I have over 24 years of expertise in marketing communications, leadership, image management, branding, project management, strategic planning, and business development, to name a few. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigeria’s #1 news app Florence is also a woman who is committed to supporting female businesses and young Nigerians with marketing communications, company growth, career development, and personal branding. She is a marketing communications consultant and the founder of the Lagos-based Life Developers Network (LDN), as well as the Nigerian program director for Digify Africa, a South African non-profit organisation. What encouraged you to become involved in various youth empowerment programmes? After years of working in totally commercial organizations. I am now driven by working with impact-driven projects by social impact organisations. I am driven by my desire to make a difference and my passion inspires excellence. Recommended for you "Which school is this?" Oyinbo teacher in UK marks attendance register in c... Challenges so far? The toughest aspects of my work now are creating awareness and looking for sources of funding and partnerships for initiatives I work on. How are you trying to meet your objectives to help youths become better in society? In my current role as Program Director in Nigeria for Digify Africa, my biggest challenge is scaling up on the project so that the impact can be even more widespread and give access to more graduates. The DigifyPro Project supported by Facebook is a very specialized initiative that is an intensive digital skill boot camp that runs full-time over 8-10 weeks. By virtue of the type of project it is, we are unable to admit too many graduates per cohort. The COVID pandemic caused us to adapt the program to an online format. This has enabled us to increase the number of cohort participants and allowed participants to join from more cities across Nigeria. Recommended for you "I used to fear Samson": Pretty lady walks 2 big lions as if they are dogs... How many graduates have benefited from the programme? Since we started in 2018, We now have 270 graduates of DigifyPro young smart Nigerians. We have CampusPro too where we are taking free digital skills to undergraduates. 70 so far have gone through the programme. What would you say is fulfilment for you in the next five years? In the next five years, I hope to have influenced thousands of Nigerian graduates with re-skilling and digital skills, and to have placed as many of them as possible in new professions in top companies across the country and around the world. I also hope to increase the number of individuals who participate in our programs, establish additional partnerships for the recruitment of our graduates, and finally, develop a digital skill and introduction to coding project for secondary school children while they are still young. Reason for career path? The fourth industrial revolution changes the way we live and work due to the adoption of technology in every aspect of our livelihoods. Recommended for you Beautiful bride rocks husband on wedding day, he becomes too shy to hold he... My journey into the digital world was deliberate and inevitable. I have always been tech-savvy but I also knew that with the world fast becoming a global village and the advent of the the-internet-of-things, it was important to get certifications and update my skills to be relevant for the 4th industrial revolution. Final words: I’d like to appeal to the private sector and government to partner with not-for-profits doing laudable social impact based initiatives to help scale up the total number of people benefiting from initiatives implemented for the people. Organizations needing digital talent can contact me to explore hiring from our pool of certified digital marketers: Florence.olumodimu@digifyafrica.com In another story, legit.ng shared the experience of Bakare Bunmi journey of creating her own business after an unsuccessful search for a job. Bakare revealed that she started with N30,000 before she was able to build her cake making business to yearly revenue of over N5 Million in 5 years. She also revealed that she now employs and trains young girls in the skill of crafting bespoke cakes, in addition to having a yearly turnover in millions. Source: Legit.ng Your support matters. Sustain independent journalism in Nigeria – contribute to Legit.ng. legit.ng, Who is Florence Atunwa Olumodimu? Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigeria’s #1 news app What encouraged you to become involved in various youth empowerment programmes? Challenges so far? How are you trying to meet your objectives to help youths become better in society? How many graduates have benefited from the programme? What would you say is fulfilment for you in the next five years? Reason for career path? Final words: legit.ng