‘Low awareness limits benefits of blockchain technology in Nigeria’

• Country urged to take cue from Switzerland, Uganda, kenya

Benefits accruable from blockchain technology may not come until awareness around the innovation is adequately acknowledged and spread.Speaking with journalists in Lagos, Executive Director, VaultBridge Global, a software security company with focus on Cyber Security, FinTech and Blockchain Technology, Harrison Ozinegbe, said lack of adequate knowledge of Blockchain technology in the country is limiting expansion.

Ozinegbe, who pledged to assist in creating the awareness of the technology in the country, said:  “no one could have imagined the exponential growth of the Internet at such a short span of its introduction on commerce, industry and government and even the ordinary citizen in a remote village.
  
“Applications we never thought possible are daily added and uploaded on the internet, easing and facilitating the way we live and do business.  Yet at the advent of Internet in the 90s in Nigeria, we were all very cautious, even up to the year 2000 with the acronym of Y2K when we heard of millennium bug supposedly to crash computer and every associated data.
  
“We are yet again at the emergence of another great technology, The Blockchain, that has come to disrupt and further revolutionize commerce, industry, government and even our everyday life,” he said.
  
The Chief Executive Officer, Vault Bridge, Michael Kiberu, on his part, said Nigeria can take a cue from countries such as Uganda, Switzerland, Kenya, Japan, where adoption of the technology has greatly impacted the landscape. Kiberu, who said Switzerland took Blockchain as an opportunity and not a threat, said the benefits accruable from adoption would be much.
    
Ozinegbe, who used the opportunity to intimate about the forthcoming conference on Blockchain technology in the 4th Industrial revolution, scheduled for November 10, in Lagos, said the programme would help to sensitize, educate the general public of the benefits of the new Technology.
 
“We hope to play very active advocacy role to engage with relevant stakeholders and authorities to develop core solution architecture in the real sectors as Power, Health, Energy, Agriculture, Transportation, etc., and to carry out indepth research and analysis in order to create a better understanding of the Blockchain Technology to enhance and benefit all sectors of the economy.

“There are high incidences of illegal hackers, internet scammers and cybercrimes across the world and Nigeria is no exception.  These crimes are often associated with cyberspace technology which Blockchain Technology also falls. This necessitates our resolve in VaultBridge to partner with KIPYA Connect and Bit2Big to constantly organize Cyber Security Executive Master Classes in Ethical Hackers and other related EC-Council certified examinations to keep operators abreast of latest technology in combating cybercrimes,” he stated.
   
On further deepening Blockchain knowledge in the country, Ozinegbe said government will not lose if it engages with professionals and study the way other countries have benefited from it.