Buhari targets 30% ICT contribution to nation’s GDP
• Teledensity falls to 105%
President Muhammadu Buhari has stressed the need to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to drive the change agenda in order to take the country to a higher level of development.
Speaking at the 2016 edition of the Digital Africa conference and exhibition in Abuja, the President observed that the use of ICT in governance was very vital, adding that the civil servants are the implementors of government policies and if ICT is not deployed in the civil service, “we will be playing a lip service to the issue.”
He noted that government has put in place so many policies that if well harnessed, it would make ICT contribute between 20-30 per cent to the GDP in the next four years.
The president also emphasized the need to create the enabling environment for the country’s teeming youths to take advantage of ICT in order to create jobs, generate wealth and diversify the economy.
He disclosed government’s plan to establish an ICT focused universities in the country.
Earlier in his presentation, Chairman of Zenith Bank Plc, Jim Ovia, observed that the Internet provided the opportunity for people to connect in ways they could never have dreamed possible adding that the Internet of Things will take us beyond connection to become part of a living, moving, global nervous system.
Ovia, who stressed the need for people to prepare for the changes in the ways we will learn, work, and innovate, said, “Whether you are an individual, technology developer or adopter of these technologies, the Internet of Things will stretch the boundaries of today’s systems.
“The technology changed the way we shop with e-commerce solutions, the term “Internet of Things” has come to describe a number of technologies and research disciplines that enable the Internet to reach out into the real world of physical objects. Intelligent interaction between human and things to exchange information and knowledge for new value creation.”
Quoting the International Data Corporation, Ovia noted that IoT will go through a huge growth in the coming years in many directions like the loT and The Cloud, loT and Non-Tradidtional Infrastructure as well as loT and Wearables adding that within five years, 40 per cent of wearables will have evolved into a viable consumer mass market alternative to smartphones.
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