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Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami has tasked investors on leveraging on Nigeria’s rising positive index on ease of doing business and its large pool of skilled young population. The country’s IT regulator assured the international investment community that an improved business climate and cheap skilled labour await them.
“A ready pool of young ‘digital natives’ awaits investors in our ICT sector. With a population having an average age of 18.2 years, Nigeria is the 22nd youngest country on earth,” said Pantami during his opening remarks at the Africa Investment Forum (AIF) with the theme: ‘Ease of Doing Business in Nigerian Tech Sector; as part of activities of the 38th Edition of Gulf Information Technology Exhibition (GITEX) Week in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Some members of the Nigerian delegation at GITEX 2018
Pantami highlighted some success stories of Nigerians across the globe such as HopStop, an online city transit App acquired by Apple for a whopping $1billion, and the recent team of Nigerian teenagers ‘Team Save A Soul’ who won the first place in the junior division of the Technovation World Pitch Summit that took place in Silicon Valley.
He tasked investors to take advantage of the ease of doing business initiative by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration which has helped the country to gain traction in the 2018 World Bank’s Report on Ease of Doing Business which now ranked the ranked Nigeria 145 out of 190 countries.
A large delegation of Nigerians were present at the Forum including members of the national assembly, senior government officials, tech entrepreneurs and a host of startups , all of which held interactive sessions with potential investors and IT industry experts from across the world.
Inside the AIF at GITEX 2018
The investment forum was organised by the NITDA in collaboration with the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC), organisers of the GITEX. More than 200 people attended the forum drawn largely from the pool of over 170, 000 that aree attending the GITEX Technology Week touted as the 3rd largest tech event in the world. Special remarks were delivered by both the Managing Director, Galaxy Backbone, Arch, Yusuf Kazaure and the Honorable Minister of Communications, Nigeria, Dr Abdul -Raheem Adebayo Shittu, who was represented by Mrs. Monilola Udoh, a senior director in the ministry.
