On Tuesday, August 30th, vice president Yemi Osinbajo at the flag-off ceremony of Google Digital Training for Youth Empowerment announced that the Federal government will train 400,000 youths in partnership with Google.
According to him, in partnership with several major technology companies, two tech hubs will be established in Lagos and Abuja and six regional hubs in the six geo-political zones; hubs that would be fully resourced with infrastructure and capacity building tools.
Apparently, this is in recognition of the importance of the technology and innovation industry to the development of Nigeria’s economic growth.
There has been a massive growth in this sector in the past few years with private companies especially the start ups taking a leading role in providing tech-solutions in business, finance, education, creative technology and strictly entertainment sectors.
Companies such as Paypal, Paga, Quickteller, Jobberman, have been making life easier for Nigerians for a few years now so it definitely comes as good news to hear that the government is finally considering expanding its economic-diversification strategy to the innovations and technology sector.
According to the Vice president, “each hub will be designed to produce relevant innovative technology, solutions to a wide range of business, commercial and government problems. For example, alternative energy solutions, creative technology, public services delivery in health, education and government processes, import substitution etc.
The question that keeps tugging though is: at what level does the government intend to intervene? There are already incubator facilities scattered around the country offering coders and software developers the opportunities to create innovative solutions using technology.
The draw back here though is that these facilities, being privately owned and mostly established for profit haven’t been able to fully resolve the computer illiteracy epidemic that exists in Nigeria.
If the government intends to do this, we expect that these hubs will provide the most basic 101 training in software development for interested Nigerians alongside the more advanced programming modules. We want to see hubs that won’t just be built without average Nigerians having access to them.
According to the vice president, there has already been a budget set aside for the training of “65,000 young Nigerians in hardware and software services and more sophisticated software hardware such as animation.”
He said this would result in more local capacity to build, assemble hardware and to write innovative programmes.
The truth is that an intervention like this is welcome as it is another avenue Nigeria can use to climb out of the economic recession we are currently experiencing. There are many tech savvy Nigerian youths who only need opportunities like this to create competitive solutions that can well become export material.
And it’s good News that the government finally sees this too because according to Osinbajo, “Nigeria could lead India as a market for technology and innovation talent.”
Creative mind. Enthusiast. Learner. Multipotentialite. And here, an assistant editor.
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