You Think Youths are Useful Idiots? Hold your tongue- We are Innovators.

"Youths are jobless and them developing Apps is just something to fulfill their hobbies.”

Can you imagine? That's the comment that came from one of the Delegates at the ICT4Ag 2013 International Conference, Kigali, Rwanda. Put yourself in the shoes of the the youth, sit your self on that chair, and imagine listening to a respected person, a leader and credible consultant utter those words in the full presence of the youth. Like a sharp double edged sword, they would pierce in your heart, like a sharp stick accidentally plucking your ear they would resonate.

This is just an example of many other humiliations youths undergo as they struggle to achieve their career goals. Youths are usually perceived as not so serious folks, who have no direction or clearly set goals. In many cases they are used as rubber stamps, just as some useful idiots not so important. Seemingly, not so important that the world can do without them. Yet, the youth are in the fore front of the great technological innovations taking place around the world. The involvement of the youth in integrating the use of ICT in agriculture is such a tremendous revolution of this generation. Reflecting on the Plug and Play Day, we saw a great percentage of successful as well start up initiatives hacked by young people. Enterprises are flourishing and profitable. Farmers are finding this useful and important; essential for their survival and growth.

Would you call this merely a hobby because the youth are jobless? Why not focus on enhancing the ICT4Ag industry so that even more youths get involved? There is need to build the capacity for the youth to successfully engage in ICT4Ag enterprises. They can perform well in the provision of access to internet and other ICT tools, content development as well as information and knowledge dissemination. The private and public sectors need to work together to develop an institutional framework that can help to tap the potential of the youth and help them to appropriately and successfully apply their knowledge , skills and energy, as well as guide them on the knowledge management cycle.

As Stephen from Ministry of Agriculture, Kenya, puts it, it is also important to for public and private sector to support the youth to make their Apps and other products open source. This will enable continuous improvement and sustainability of mobile and web applications for agriculture, with the help of other more experienced developers, easy replication and avoid duplication. In this case, the private and public sector should motivate the youth by financing and providing technical support to the youth, because this is what restricts the youth from making the applications open source.

Furthermore, there is need to develop a forum for young people in ICT4Ag, that would serve as a learning community, as well as a platform that can help a void duplication and enhance collaboration among many other benefits.

You see! Youths are driven by passion and strive to meet their career goals, they are too eager to contribute to change in their communities rather than driving innovation as a hobby.