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The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has urged tech companies to leverage the global opportunities for exposure, partnership and investment at this year’s Gulf Information Technology Exhibition and Expo (GITEX) holding in Dubai from 10th to 14th October, 2022.
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The IT agency made the appeal while inaugurating a GITEX 2022 Local Organising Committee (LOC) to ensure a successful outing for Nigeria at the annual event now touted as the world’s most important tech and innovation gathering for government entities, startups and corporate leaders.
Members of the GITEX 2022 Local Organising Committee (LOC)
NITDA has been coordinating Nigeria’s official presence at GITEX since 2013 by promoting a Country Pavilion, Startup Pavilion and Trade Delegation designed to boost the country’s capacity for development and engagement in the global technology industry.
While inaugurating the committee, Director General, NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdulahi, charged the members to see their nominations as a call to national assignment and a privilege to serve the country in another capacity.
He said GITEX remains a veritable platform for Nigeria to show the world what her youths are capable of doing in the area of tech innovation, noting that the nation has become a force to reckon with in global tech innovations.
“I think we have made our impacts felt at the event because the organiser of the event came to Nigeria to head hunt talents. They are sponsoring four of our start-ups to the event this year,” said the NITDA boss. He was represented by NITDA’s acting Director, Corporate Planning and Strategy, Dr. Aristotle Onuma,
He described the event as a “strategic window” that provides opportunity for exposure to start-ups ecosystem because it opens opportunities for them to meet investors who are interested in their products.
While advising the private sector to take advantage of the opportunity NITDA has to offer by subscribing, partaking and taking ownership of the event, he reiterated that “Nigeria has a lot to learn from the technology show.”
He said, “Nigeria can maximize the potentials of the event by learning from there and domicile whatever we learnt in the country to solve most of our challenges.
Also in his presentation, Mr. Olusegun Oruame of Pinnacle Consulting, a firm that consults for NITDA on the event, expressed delight for the visibility the event has offered Nigeria.
He recalled a memorable event when a Nigerian won first prize in Artificial Intelligence category in 2019.
Oruame disclosed that GITEX 2022 is six events in one. According to him, these include the AI Conference, North Stars (Global Future Stars), Future Blockchain Summit, Fintech Surge, Tech Marketing Mania, and Global DevSlam.
He further added that Conference would discuss topics on The Rise of Predictive Clouds, Data Ops to Xops, Edge Computing and Business Intelligence Adoption, and Net Greener AI for Data Centers among others.
Members of the Committee were drawn from both the public and private sectors; they include those from the Nigeria Investment Promotion Council (NIPC), Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), National Data Protection Bureau (NPDB), Cherry Brooks Ltd, Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), Smartweb, and Domineum Blockchain Solutions Ltd among others.
