Millionaire tech-entrepreneur says he will not send his children to university

ABU DHABI- A 26-year-old successful tech-entrepreneur, who had started and sold a media company at the age of 17, said he will never send his children to university.

"I have actually made a resolution to myself that when I have children I'm not going to send them to university. I know, it's a crazy decision, but the reason is everything I've learned has been just self-learning through YouTube etc.," said Timothy Armoo, founder and CEO of Fanbytes, a London-based agency that supports clients such as UK Government and big corporates to reach out generation Z on social media.

"The next generation will see a big shift away from formal education," he told Emirates News Agency (WAM) in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of the International Government Media Forum in Sharjah where he was a speaker.

No need to go to university to find a livelihood "I do believe, generally, formal education will see a nosedive. Having said that, there are certain universities that are not about the certification, but holding the name and the prestige, such as Oxford and Cambridge etc. I think they will still be there," he explained.

However, he added, the next generation may stop thinking that they need to go to a university to get a job or livelihood because internet, social media and related technologies have opened up equal opportunities for everyone to build a career or business.

"In the past you needed so much capital but now you just go online [and build a career or enterprise]. That is an incredible achievement even for my generation. The younger generation is going to have even more opportunities." For the next generation, they could just make a career by creating content online, he pointed out.

"You look at these social media influencers and such people. They make it a big business online. They do it themselves and that is something which you never ever heard of. The fact that you can just be in your bedroom and you can create a YouTube or Tiktok content, and then companies are paying for it," he said.

Online career and enterprise for everyone "That's the way you make your living. It is so outrageous, now but, I think, for the next generation that's actually going to become more normal. I think you are going to see a shift where that sort of online career actually becomes more desirable than being a doctor or lawyer," the tech-entrepreneur said.

One of the great things about social media and technology, and the Internet in general, is that there is always an audience, he pointed out.

"There's always a community, even if those people are just 10,000 or 50,000, which is generally rated very small. Those people can really love your concept and that followers will help you get payment from brands [who want to reach out that audience]." "You get money by being yourself. In the past you had to go to a workplace, somewhere physically to work. Right now people are waking up from bed, start shooting with a camera and typing some texts – that is their life." Dwindling opportunities and income gap When more such opportunities come, he believes, the world will be a better place to live.

There has been inequality in terms of individual achievements, he observed. However, internet has created a level playing field.

"You have the same access to information whether you live in San Francisco, Brazil or UAE. It is so exciting to me because internet has eliminated the barriers you may have for not living in a particular [developed] country," he said.

From his own experience of being an African from Ghana, he believes the next wave of technologies will help diminish income inequality as well in the world.

"The income inequality at the moment is worse because we are in the first wave of technology. The dotcom revolution was around 20 years ago. I was born in 1994 and so I was part of the first wave of the internet. But that also means that there were groups of people who were not part of the first wave of the Internet." Likewise, equal opportunities and dwindling income inequality will help people in developing countries, especially in Africa, Asia and South America to catch up with the west in all areas of life, he said with an optimistic smile.