Lagos wants more tech investors to manage state’s eGovt initiatives

The Lagos State Commissioner for Science and Technology, Hakeem Fahm, has revealed that the state needed additional technology fortifications to be able to manage the state’s egovt initiatives.He urged all the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) companies in the state to increase their technology investments in the state.

Fahm made the challenge while speaking as special guest at a seminar tagged Insight Day, organised by data solution company, Hitachi Vantara, in Lagos.He said the State is encouraging companies like Hitach to invest in the state especially in information technology and revealed that Lagos is willing to partner with relevant stakeholders to make the state a technological hub for the country and the continent as a whole.

He said: “When you take a look at Lagos state, the population is about 22million and it continues to grow. We are still managing the state with minimal technology but cannot continue that way. We have to invest more on technology and that is why we are moving heavily into the use of technology to manage the state.

“Also, the economy in Lagos State is larger than all the other countries in west Africa combined. So we need to build technology to manage not only the eGovernment initiatives but other activities. Lagos is always open for business and we are building applications on e-government, e-health, e-survey and so on.

“Lagos state is encouraging companies like Hitachi to continue to invest in the state. Lagos set up an innovation and education centre at YABA called KITE. KITE stands for knowledge, innovation, technology and entrepreneurship. It is very important that we provide an enabling environment for the citizens as well as corporations to be able to work together and continue to build Lagos so that it will emerge as mart city,” Fahm said.

Hitachi used the seminar to present solutions on its stable that can help organisations put their data into better use, including how to monetize such data.

The company said that since everyday business is under pressure to meet up with set goals and objectives, only digital transformation, can help businesses accelerate cost efficiency and time to market by automating operations and processes. The company added that data transformation would help increase loyalty and grow revenue by improving customer experience and unlock innovations.The company’s Managing Director for Sub Saharan Africa, Alexander Jenewein, said the vision of Hitachi is to bring solutions that can create values from in-house data.

“We in the Hitachi Vantara have the solutions, from data centre modernisation, which is the first step to ultimately bringing the data centre to the modern age. Our data solution filters information or data irrespective of the quantity, separate and analyse them with the sole purpose of creating value for companies”, he added.

Corroborating Jenewein, the company’s Regional Managing Director, West Africa, Wale Awosokanre, said the company’s data solution helps people scale into the untapped potential of data, riding on the company’s experience on how to store, enrich, activate and monetise data from the business landscape.