According to Cybersecurity Ventures, cybercrime will cost the world in 2025, more than 10.5 trillion annually. That is even more than the drug trade. However, the cybersecurity professionals who are able to prevent such crimes are very few. The world should have one more 4 million of them (ISC2). It will require Africa at least 100,000 certified professionals to even match up (University World News). On its part, ANTIC recorded more than XAF 6 billion losses to scams and phishing last year only in Cameroon. Lost to card skimming: another XAF 3.5 billion. That is the money that is stolen by common citizens.

The weird part is, youths in this area are intelligent. They learn fast. The system however does not provide them an opportunity. Schools teach theory. Old textbooks. Stuff that is not what employers really desire. According to the African Development Bank, investment in the continent is being hampered by lack of skills. And girls get hit hardest. Women in the world occupy about 25 percent of the cybersecurity employment (Fortinet). It is likely to be less in Cameroon. No one counts it adequately, and enter any technical office and tally.

The Anglophone crisis. It has been shutting down businesses since 2016. Investors left. There are hospitals where the youths would have worked in the shops or offices. The International Organization of Migration estimates an additional over 700,000 people have been displaced. It was not only the crisis that introduced refugees to the Buea young people. It had left behind a generation of time, energy, and of no place to go and nothing to know.

In 2030 the government is deliberating on how to create thousands of tech jobs. That is good. But who will fill those positions when young people have not been trained? Who will develop the AI systems or avert the next whopping fraud when the girls are not encouraged to join the tech early on? The gap between education and industry is widening.

Unless the circumstance alters, the youthful population of Cameroon will not remain an asset but becomes a problem. The unemployed youth get frustrated. There is instability on societies with no prospects. Those girls who lack an opportunity are left dependent. And the country is losing a business which is sure to grow. Artificial intelligence and cybersecurity are here to remain. That is whether it is our young people who will be building those systems, or whether they will be the ones being duped by the ones who build them.