The Child-In-Tech Conference second edition – which is focused on Financial Technology (Fintech) – is set to be held on Saturday, January 13, 2024 at the Academic University in Accra.
The conference, themed ‘Promoting Financial Technology for Economic Growth’, will bring together, students between the ages of 9 and 17 from various schools across the Greater Accra Region, as well as experts from the fintech industry who will walk the students through the foundations and principles of financial technology.
The conference is sponsored by Taptap Send and the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC). Taptap Send is an app that allows people to send money to family with just a few taps and a debit card, while GIFEC seeks to engineer an ICT-led socio-economic development process with potential to transform Ghana into a middle-income, information-rich, knowledge-based and technology-driven economy.
“Now more than ever, the adoption of digital payment systems has seen an unprecedented rise. People of all age groups and geographical locations are leaning toward emerging digital payment systems for their day-to-day transactions. Research has indicated that children, especially students at the Senior High School (SHS) level, are among the most actively involved age group in this these digital transactions. Students constantly receive payments from their parents and guardians at home for their upkeep as well as academic expenses,” the organisers said in a statement.
“Despite this fact, is it evident that most of these children are unfortunately yet to grasp the full nitty-gritty of financial technology; and since they have become key components of the remittance ecosystem, it is only prudent to sensitise them to ensure they intimately fathom the intricacies of financial technology as well as its relevance to economic growth. This among others, is what makes the Child-In-Tech Conference paramount.”
The 2024 conference, Chief Executive Officer-Child In Tech, Akua Otubea Essah revealed, will introduce the children to saving and its ultimate benefit.
She strongly believes that one doesn’t need to have so much before beginning to save. “Little drops of water make a mighty ocean.”
The conference will consist of three sessions: The first will have invited expert speakers making their presentations and subsequently answering questions from the audience; the second will be a break-out session wherein students will be split into ten groups and encouraged to take up career courses in the ICT Industry; with the third session having the children experience hands-on training with new and emerging technologies.
At the break out session, each group will be taken through one of ten selected topics under financial technology by our trained facilitators; after which, each facilitator will select one student from their group to explain, on stage, the topic they learnt to students in the other groups.
The topics they will be taken through are: Introduction to Fintech; Types of Fintech; Impacts of Fintech; Career Opportunities in Fintech and Salary Range; Challenges of Fintech; Possible Solutions to Fintech Challenges; Fintech’s Contribution to Economic Growth; Key Marketable Skills for the Fintech Job Market; How to become a fintech expert; and Fintech Scholarship Opportunities.
The children are the future, and therefore it is imperative to put in place the necessary mechanisms to inculcate in them the needed knowledge and understanding of these emerging digital payment systems so they make productive use of them.
