It is another August 12, another International Youth Day. The African Youth Charter recognises persons within the age range of 15 to 35 as youth.In 2015, 226 million youth aged 15-24 years lived in Africa, accounting for 19 per cent of the global youth population. By 2030, it is projected that the number of youth in Africa will have increased by 42 per cent. This shows that the youth have a huge role to play in the development of the continent.

Many youths are already making colossal contributions in different facets of the continents development.

Here are five of them whose contributions have been noticed and are worth mentioning in Nigeria.

Bunmi Otegbade

Born in December 23, 1984 Otegbade is a youth business champion. He started as a senior Management Consultant at KPMG Advisory Services, where he provided advisory services to over 12 large institutions across 5 countries in Africa. He has also run several non-profit initiatives – Soup Kitchen movement, Unveiling Africa Foundation, Engineers with a Mission.

The 31-year-old bridges the gap between grassroots business and larger business through two entities: his non-profit, Generation Enterprise and his strategy advisory firm, StrategyQ. A strong advocate of inclusive business, he helps larger organizations craft pro-poor strategies to include the grassroots in business processes and unlock hidden financial and social returns at the bottom-of-the-pyramid. Currently, through (Generation Enterprise) GEN’s training, investment and business support services, over 3,000 grassroots youth have been trained in entrepreneurship and business management, with more than 120 having been set up in businesses across Nigeria and in India.

Lukman Jaji

Lukman, a social service champion, began as a volunteer, and then consultant to the AU Institute for Education Information Management System in Congo Brazzaville. He is currently GIZ Adviser to the AU on the Pan African University.

The 32-year-old has been credited for playing an active role in the take-off of the AU Pan African University. He single handily developed and managed the desktop, mobile and web applications currently used by the African Union Commission in the management of the Pan African University project. This portal is currently being used at the four take off institutes in Nigeria, Kenya, Cameroon and Algeria for management of admission processes. In the just ended 2014/2015 students and staff call, the portal made it possible for over 6,000 young Africans to apply to the Pan African University.

Otto Orondaam

Otto Orondaam is the founder of Slum2School, a foundation made up of devoted people with a burning passion to care for the welfare and education of the African child.

The 29-year-old’s Slum2School initiative has given so much to the less privileged, orphans and vulnerable children and has brought smiles to their faces by giving them basic education and scholarship opportunities. More than 1500 young volunteers from over 10 countries have volunteered Slum2School corporate organizations have also supported the initiative

Jake Okechukwu

Nigerian radio personality, human rights activist and lawyer, 28-year-old Okechukwu anchored the community radio show Flava on BBC Media Action and is hosting the Talk Your Own: Make Naija Better programme, the latter of which has broadcast on over a hundred stations and has reached millions of listeners in Nigeria.

Okechukwu has been involved with the Sickle Cell Aid Foundation established in 2010 as a non-governmental organisation for the aid and support of indigent persons diagnosed with sickle cell anemia in Nigeria. The organisation has set up sickle cell clubs in many secondary schools. It has also donated drugs to local hospitals in the FCT and campaigned for better educating the public on sickle cell anemia.

Joshua Ihejiamaizu

Joshua Ihejiamaizu is a social entrepreneur. He initiated several ICT-based community projects at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), Nigeria. One of the projects include the HealthBook Project through which Joshua and his team designed a healthcare application that helps students diagnose between malaria and typhoid. This project was carried out in partnership with the FUTO Medical Center. The 21-year-old is the co-founder of NIXIT and co-creator of HealthMobile, an android-based one-stop app for everything related to healthcare, including health news, information on diseases, drugs, supplements, nutrition, first aid, and nearby hospitals.