FG to train one million application developers in 18 months

•NITDA secures N300m grant for startups

The Federal Government is to train one million Nigerians in various application (apps) development in the next 18 months.

National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), the agency that would oversee the initiative, said the deployment of digital technologies remains a fundamental tool in the implementation of the United Nations (UN) 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which targeted at making the world a better and safer place.

NITDA’s Director-General, Kashifu Inuwa, who disclosed this in Lagos, at the weekend, clarified that the project would be undertaken in partnership with relevant stakeholders in the ecosystem with a view of making Nigeria the hub of digital talents in Africa.

Represented by Acting Director of Corporate Planning and Strategy, Dr. Aristotle Onumo, the DG, who spoke at the Global Digital Economy Summit, organised by Junior Chamber International Nigeria (JCIN), charged everyone to take advantage of the various opportunities provided by the government.

Lauding the theme of the event, ‘Digital Transformation – Defining Our Success Pillars’, Inuwa said the programme aligned with President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration’s agenda of sustaining the digitisation of Nigeria.

“I am indeed delighted with the theme of this summit, which aptly captures the main essence of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) and resonates with the goal of our strategic road map and action plan 2021-2024,” he said.

Describing digital transformation as a cultural change that requires organisations to continually challenge the status quo, the NITDA boss submitted that the adoption of digital technologies would provide unprecedented opportunities, which the private and public sectors could leverage to enhance their productivity and market access.

While emphatically stating the government’s commitment to the growth of the digital system, Inuwa said several programmes had been designed by the Federal Ministry of Communications & Digital Economy and his agency to increase the level of digitisation in public and private institutions.

He stressed that the ongoing implementation of NITDA’s Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan 2021-2024, developed to harness the vast opportunities and growth potentials of the digital technology sector, has accelerated the nation’s digital transformation.

“As an agency working towards the digital transformation agenda of the current administration as contained in the NDEPS, we have initiated the Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Support (TIES) scheme to encourage the establishment of more innovation-driven startup ventures, with emphasis on indigenous technologies,” Inuwa added.

To ensure that the citizens are empowered with information technologies, the DG informed that the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR) was established to develop an army of IT proficient and globally competitive manpower as part of its contribution to the successful implementation of the Digital Transformation Policy.

Motivating youths to be innovative-driven so as to benefit maximally from government initiatives, the NITDA chief executive said the agency had struck several collaborations in securing grants to support startups to a tune of N300 million and had also sponsored startups to various international forums to give young entrepreneurs global visibility.