While giving a keynote talk at the Nigeria ICT Week, Kashifu Inuwa, director general of NITDA, CCIE, critically highlighted the nation’s route to a digital transformation in order to achieve National Social and Economic Development.
The event, which was organized by NITDA, NEPC, NASS, and CFA and hosted at the NAF Conference Centre in Abuja, brought together the industry’s major players to share ideas on how to establish a viable and comfortable environment for indigenous companies to succeed.
Dr. Aristotle Onumo, the Agency’s Ag.Director of Corporate Planning and Strategy Department, represented Inuwa, who remarked that the Agency has made a strategic decision to join the global trend and described the event as a venue for discussing the country’s digital transformation path.
“Our event is very much in line with our mandate at NITDA, which is to develop and change the Digital Economy sector of this wonderful nation by establishing the required regulatory and governance framework to stimulate the growth of the Digital Economy ecosystem,” said Inuwa.
To bolster his case, the DG cited the Agency’s support for indigenous firms, which have contributed significantly to the continent’s $4 billion in tech startup revenue in 2021 alone, and have attracted international notice.
“While we recognize the ocean boiling technique by which the digital ecosystem has evolved over time,” he explained, “the Agency has been at the forefront of catalyzing a new way to enabling the establishment of a healthy digital ecosystem.”
Inuwa noted that the NITDA Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan 2021-2024 (SRAP) has served as a “compass” for navigating the nation’s unpredictable, uncertain, and dynamic digital industry.
He asserted unequivocally that the implementation of the SRAP, which is based on partnership and stakeholder collaboration and includes public, private, indigenous, and foreign stakeholders, has revitalized the entire digital ecosystem.
The NITDA chairman revealed that six firms have been encouraged to acquire a grant of N300 million, and entrepreneurial capacities for youths have been strengthened through effective cooperation with NEPC and Mass Challenge, to name a few.
Inuwa stated that the Agency is committed to making Nigeria a digital talent hub for Africa by leveraging on various community-based programs and other strategic initiatives designed to harness raw digital talents and transform them into productive digital skills, while also promising to grow the nation’s digital tech ecosystem.
“As we approach the last decade of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, it is critical that we prioritize embracing Fourth Industrial Revolution technical advances to meet our most serious developmental concerns,” he concluded.
Earlier in his welcome address, Hon. Solomon Adaelu, Deputy Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on ICT & Digital Economy, stated that power is a major stumbling block to the country’s growth and urged participants to develop solutions based on the distributed ledger that can provide a transparent, efficient, and secure power factor.
“At the legislative level, we will support many of these ideas and programs as they emerge,” he said, “and I want to encourage all of the agencies present to continue to partner with these programs.”
The MD/CEO Galaxy Backbone, who was represented by the Organization’s Group Head, Regional Offices, Mr Abdulmaliq Suleiman, the Executive Assistant to the Governor of Delta State and coordinator of the UNIDO centre, Mrs Shimite Bello, as well as the Ag. Coordinator, Office for Nigerian Digital Innovation (ONDI), Mr Yakubu Musa, were among the other key players at the event.
