Akinseye, Olofinlua win global writing challenge

Two Nigerian writers – Isabella Akinseye and Temitayo Olofinlua-Amogunla – have emerged two of the top three winners of the 2014 edition of the annual Peter Drucker Writing Challenge.

The contest is held annually in honour of late Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author Peter Drucker, who is widely regarded as the greatest teacher of management.

While Isabella Akinseye, publisher of monthly entertainment magazine Nolly Silver Screen, emerged second runner-up with her entry, The power of online in the knowledge economy: The Nolly Silver Screen Example; Olofinlua-Amogunla placed first runner-up with the entry, The Knowledge Worker in the New Wonderland.

The contest was won by Indian Ananthanarayanan Venkateswaran, whose piece was titled Lost in Digital Wonderland? Finding a Path in the Global Knowledge Society.

Under-35 applicants for the contest were required to explore the theme of where their generation “wants to go” and which paths they would choose to get there, “along the way contributing to the shape of this emerging world”.

“The exponential development of digital technologies is transforming society and business – creating new industries, new organisational models, new business models, and a new open culture where collaboration and sharing is the norm,” read a part of the official call for entries.

“At the same time that it offers great promise, it has the potential to destroy jobs on a very large scale, as the same forces of automation that have relieved humans of repetitive assembly work now advance toward making many of us unnecessary to service work and even knowledge work.

“There is no obvious path through this digital wonderland – we must find our own ways individually and collectively. The future is open; all of us are called upon to enhance the good and mitigate the bad.”

Specifically, the applicants were to address the questions of how they envisioned their lives as knowledge workers/entrepreneurs 10 years from now, how the capabilities of this “digital wonderland” could be leveraged for the benefit of society and individuals, how the destructive and dark side of digital technologies could be tamed and neutralized, what impact of digital technology they anticipated in their lifelong learning journey, and where they saw the best opportunities to create a new Industrial revolution with digital technologies across all sectors of the economy.

These and other matters would be discussed at the 6th Global Drucker Forum in Vienna, Austria, on November 13 and 14, with themed The Great Transformation – Managing our Way to Prosperity, which all three winners will be fully sponsored to attend.

Only in August, Akinseye was also second runner-up at the maiden edition of the Africa Movie Academy Awards Media (AMAA) Recognition awards.

Olofinlua-Amogunla was herself first prize winner of the 2012 Peter Drucker Writing Challenge.