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The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), this week in Abuja, joined the global community in celebrating the World Creativity and Innovation Day. Director General of the agency, Mallam Inuwa Kashifu Abdullahi, enjoined innovators across the world particularly Nigerian youths to leverage creativity and innovation to resolve the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The United Nations declared April 21 as the World Creativity and Innovation Day. The day is marked to raise awareness around the importance of creativity and innovation in problem solving, especially with respect to advancing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is also a day set aside to encourage the creative and innovative ecosystem and multidisciplinary thinkers at individual and group levels to come up with solutions to economic, social and sustainable development.
Innovation and Creativity, especially in ICT, has become the strongest catalyst for sustainable economic growth and development across nations. It is not only necessary for developing new products and services but also, especially at this trying time of the COVID-19 pandemic, to ensure the survival of the national economy, through various aspects of human development. These focus areas of human development, according to the United Nations, are wealth and job creation, creativity and culture, economic growth and strategies, and innovation and entrepreneurship.
The Creativity and Innovation ecosystem as well as the general public are therefore encouraged to embrace creativity and innovation as essential tools for harnessing economic potentials for expanding opportunities and solutions towards arresting the COVID-19 pandemic. NITDA is making progressive efforts at creating opportunities for the adoption of creativity and innovation aimed at addressing the country’s socio-economic challenges in different sectors of the economy.
Such efforts necessitated setting up of the Office for ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIIE), a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) of NITDA, to oversee and drive ICT innovation and entrepreneurship. OIIE has been responsible for identifying and recommending solutions to issues critical to driving the national digital economy, including enabling and mentoring startups, entrepreneurs and firms to successfully build their businesses and solutions in line with the country’s efforts of arresting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Furthermore, NITDA, in line with its mandate, has been working assiduously towards developing skilled and globally competitive workforce.
Therefore, Nigeria has every cause to join the rest of the global community in celebrating the World Creativity and Innovation Day. As we commemorate this all-important day, we are reiterating our call on the Nigerian youth, the Creativity and Technology Innovation ecosystem, key practitioners in the ICT industry and the general public to be prepared to take their rightful places in the global creativity and technology innovation ecosystem. We are confident that we have the capacity to harness the potentials of Creativity and Technology Innovation in developing solutions to help in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as support in cushioning the economic impact of the pandemic.
All citizens and residents are advised to remain safe, stay and work from home, and be creative and innovate while enjoying the 2020 World Creativity and Innovation Day.
