Samenvatting

There are many Cameroonian graduates in the Netherlands who have acquired great competencies in different professional fields but have decided to stay and work abroad. Some that were interviewed during field work said there are no jobs in Cameroon, so they prefer to live abroad where graduates have more career prospects. However, social media platforms create brand exposure, provide room for quick feedback and also facilitate information exchange across the world. That takes us to the main purpose of this research, which is aimed towards creating an online platform where highly skilled Cameroonians can utilise new media tools for knowledge exchange between the Netherlands and Cameroon. Therefore, in order to fully exploit the numerous opportunities embedded in social media platforms; this research makes use of the following research questions:
To what extend can social media be incorporated by highly skilled Cameroonians living in the Netherlands for the development of Cameroon? How can the AfroEuro organisation mobilise the skills of Cameroonian graduates living in the Netherlands for homeland advantage? The following results were obtained during field work: first, analysing the gender of participants was important as they also constitute the primary target for this paper, therefore findings showed that 61.5% of the respondents are female and 38.5% are male, implying that there are more highly skilled Cameroonian women in the Netherlands than men. On the other hand, 53.8% of the respondents are between the ages 25 and 30 with 46.2 % being high school graduates followed by 30.8% for bachelor degree holders. Most importantly, 76.9% of all respondents are social network users, implying that they are already familiar with the tool that is intended for knowledge exchange between the Netherlands and Cameroon. Therefore, sharing knowledge via online platforms will be the ultimate way for highly skilled Cameroonians living in the Netherlands to give something valuable to Cameroon. Most respondents are already familiar with online social networking; therefore the process of exchanging knowledge through an online platform will be less demanding. Hence, online knowledge exchange will benefit Cameroon whereas their daily jobs in the Netherlands will continue to benefit the Netherlands where they live.More so, the research that was conducted during field work proved that Facebook is the most preferred social network by respondents. Most of them believe it is very user-friendly and can be easily updated.Subsequently, the success of this research will depend on how highly skilled Cameroonians in the Netherlands use Facebook and other social networks to share knowledge. Many have confessed to visiting and using social networks almost every time they are free, this is therefore the time to grasp the opportunity to use it for something that can go a long way to develop the knowledge capacity and skills of all Cameroonians living in Cameroon!