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tBs touts knowledge economy to rejig Nigeria

By Peter Oluka
03 March 2017   |   3:28 am
Ayotunde Coker, managing director, Rack Centre, delivered a well-researched presentation on ‘The Challenges & Importance of Building a Knowledge-Led Economy through ICT.’

Mr Ayotunde Coker, Managing Director, Rack Centre

Nigeria must become a thinking nation if it will survive the coming disruptive revolution which is upon the world, according to some of Nigeria’s best brains in information and communications technology (ICT).

The experts at the maiden edition of ‘Think Breakfast Series’ (tBs) organized by Nigeria CommunicationsWeek and CFAtech.ng in Lagos, agree that one of the biggest steps President Muhammadu Buhari led Federal Government must take is to identify and address impediments to broadband penetration.

Ayotunde Coker, managing director, Rack Centre, delivered a well-researched presentation on ‘The Challenges & Importance of Building a Knowledge-Led Economy through ICT.’

According to him, Nigeria has over 180million (estimated) population with the middle class around 18 years old and gross domestic product (GDP) worth $481billion, it therefore behooves on the government and the private sector to build critical infrastructure required to stir up the knowledge-led economy.

Mr. Coker who reiterated improvement broadband penetration usually leads to 1,4% increase in GDP, noting that the key driver of knowledge-based economy relies on the transformational power of computing.

“Knowledge economy eco system requires varying technologies to thrive particularly Fibre then of course LTE, 5G is coming into the mix now. Of course the impact and benefits of cloud services can’t be over emphasized. More so Cloud services will create significant positive impact on SMEs particularly for cost savings, optimization and efficiency.

On his part, Mr. Yele Okeremi, managing director of Precise Financial Systems (PFS) said that the ten pillars the World Economic Forum (WEF) uses to gauge nations shows that Nigeria is lagging in most of the areas like skill, knowledge and competence pillar.

Mr. Okeremi said that technology as a tool and technology professionals can assist in the enhancing the ease of doing business particularly by ensuring that e-government platforms are deployed.

Mr. Muhammed Rudman, the chief executive officer, Internet eXchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), nodded in agreement and added that funding framework for start-ups has not encouraged innovation.

Mr. James Emadoye, President, Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON), however, linked the journey to knowledge-based economy to quality educational sector.

To him, there is need for technology companies like Rack Centre to collaborate with educational institutions particularly universities to enable them enjoy the benefits of cloud services because it’s expensive for universities to building their own data centers, rather they should focus on knowledge delivery.

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