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Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, has commended the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) for championing strategic efforts geared towards increasing the pool of Nigerians with indigenous digital contents and skills.
The Minister said this during the virtual ‘NITDA Stakeholders’ Meetup and Hangout’ with the theme, “Leveraging Indigenous Technologies to Enhance Educational Development”. The hangout is part of 2nd National Data Summit organised by Office for Nigerian Content Development in ICT (ONC), under the NITDA.
“It is heartwarming to note that NITDA has taken strategic steps towards developing indigenous digital learning platform for rural communities in Nigeria, adding that, the urgent need for upskilling solutions to close the digital skills gap at this time cannot be over emphasized,” said Pantami.
Noting that this move is for Nigeria to seamlessly transit into a digitally-driven economy, attaining such feat could not have come at a better time, he said.
Earlier, the Director General of NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, while delivering his remarks, gave an insight to how the agency has been championing the course for the adoption of indigenous technology with focus on education sector due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic which has disrupted conventional education system, and revolutionizing digital and online learning globally.
“The essence of this Data Summit is to help us as a country meet the second criteria for building a successful digital nation and its corresponding digital economy —that is, a solid strategy for data exploration and management,” said Abdullahi.
He added that the agency’s next strategic action is to organize innovation challenge on indigenous solution that can help develop digital learning platform for rural communities in Nigeria, noting that the federal government was also doing everything possible to ensure that young and underprivileged children stay in school and have access to good education.
“At our ministry and NITDA we also responded by launching virtual learning platforms for our citizen to spend their time meaningfully out of school. Our platforms are aimed at reskilling and upskilling our citizens with digital skill for post covid-19 world and future of work. As of this morning we have 24,372 active students learning under NITDA Academy”, he added.
The NITDA’s boss revealed that, “the aim of the meetup is to kill two birds with one stone, which are to open a discussion on how we can leverage emerging technologies to build an affordable indigenous solution to address the current global learning crisis using indigenous solutions, and to encourage and incentivize our innovative citizens to develop marketable products and services using emerging technologies.”
