Youth and ICT for Development.

The youth in Rwanda makes up the largest percentage in population, since the population is big, the youth should get involved in active development of the country. Because ICT is one of the pillars of development, the youth in Rwanda should also get involved in ICT so as to help out in developing their nation. Recently, I was one of the lucky young men who attended a workshop organized by Rwanda development gateway, an ICT firm aimed at teaching the Rwandan youth on how they can use ICT to help develop their nation. The lessons were very beneficial and the youth had an opportunity to learn the basics of ICT and how it can be used as a tool for development. All people who attended the workshop went back home with minds full of knowledge on how they use ICT as a way towards development.
ICT as a common phase means Information Communication and Technology. If information is easily accessed in time, it’s one of the basics that help people achieve and develop. For instance if there is a job opportunity somewhere, for somebody to get employed, it’s when he/she is well informed and that’s no doubt one of the good things that should convince the youth to get involved in ICT. Another importance of ICT is that it involves communication and everyone very well knows that when there is efficient communication, it improves a lot in life of an individual, a country and the whole world. There are very many ways of how people can communicate; using phones, the internet where people share with each other everything, this helps with getting things done in time, which ensures better quality. It also helps in socialization, creating friends anywhere in the world and this helps in reducing isolation and improving relationships. It’s also important for the youth to get involved in ICT because it helps them to excel in business, an example is when advertising or selling on a website and creating awareness of your products and services to your customers. ICT is one of the basic tools that can be used to acquire a better quality education because people get a lot of information within a small time, do assignments easily, get a lot of research and excel in their studies, a thing I think is beneficial. ICT is very important and I urge the youth to get involved because it can them improve their health because they can be informed on how to avoid grave diseases like AIDS, avoid early pregnancies, treatment of diseases and also helps in medical research which all links to a better health.
There are very many importances of the youth getting involved in ICT, they all can’t mentioned but what’s known is they have a positive contribution to the country’s development, but one last thing I can’t forget to mention is the importance of ICT in leadership, if the Rwandan youth gets access to information which is enough, they can get involved in the leadership process, give out views, voice out opinions and exert pressure on policy makers to incorporate their perspectives and concerns hence get involved in all areas of the nation’s life and hence development of the country.
But though ICT has very many importances, if used badly it can have dangers and bad influence to the youth, so I urge the youth of our beautiful nation Rwanda to get involved in ICT for their own development and their country so that they can help in the reconstruction process and change Rwanda’s image from the Rwanda of genocide and hatred to a Rwanda of development, peace, unity, prosperity and opportunities.
Go ICT! Go Rwanda! Go development!!!