The Nigerian Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (NIEEE), the national community for electrical and electronics engineering professionals in Nigeria, has outlined how the nation can build a resilient national “digital nervous system” by integrating satellite, terrestrial and cloud technologies to connect people, infrastructure, data and public services across the country.

The NIEEE disclosed this during its diaspora chapter’s monthly webinar series 1.4, held virtually yesterday themed, “Building Nigeria’s Digital Nervous System: A Framework for Converging Satellite, Terrestrial, and Cloud Assets into a National Development Platform,” highlighting the need for the West African country to move beyond isolated digital infrastructure and develop an integrated communications ecosystem capable of collecting, transmitting, processing and responding to information in real time.

A Technology Infrastructure Solutions professional and Technical Secretary, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), NIEEE Diaspora chapter, Abimbola A. Ogunjinmi, whose more than two decades of professional experience span telecommunications networks, digital infrastructure, data centres and large-scale technology deployment, spoke at the webinar.

According to Ogunjinmi, the concept of a digital nervous system draws an analogy with the human nervous system, where the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves work together to receive information, transmit it, process it and trigger appropriate responses.

He said Nigeria’s digital future depends on the seamless integration of satellite systems, fibre networks, data centres, cloud technologies, identity platforms, and public service infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the webinar also underscored the complementary roles of satellite, terrestrial networks and cloud computing in creating such an architecture.

The networks, Ogunjinmi added, could provide the capacity and low-latency connections required for cities, businesses, government institutions, schools, hospitals and other critical services.

He, however, stressed that the debate should not be framed as satellite versus fibre or terrestrial versus non-terrestrial networks, saying that technologies should complement one another.