- Tech Makes Lives Better – Bayero
Information Technology expert, Dr Chris Uwaje has called on the Federal Government to create a National Information Innovation Technology Development Fund for start-ups.
Uwaje, a former President of the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) made the call on Thursday in Lagos, during the 2017 Nigeria Mobile Economy Summit and Expo (NiMES).
He said that the fund will be used for those who were creating hubs to be able to train start-ups.
According to him, the cyberspace is a ”weaponised knowledge domain,” hence, the need for trained people to be in the space.
“We need to understand how this weaponised domain can be curtailed and there are advantages challenges and risks.
“The new fourth industrial revolution is about the knowledge realm and that frontier is where Nigeria has advantage, if it is properly groomed.
“This is because the youths that are embodied in population of the country constitute a very good advantage for Nigeria.
“A lot of youths are hungry for this magnitude but the institutions that would teach them are not there,’’ he said.
He said that government needed to be digitally retuned because the world was in a new revolution.
“You cannot use the traditional norms of responding to challenges of yesterday to respond to challenges and advantages of today.
“Government should retune the workforce, everybody must be digitised and everybody must have digital literacy.
“It must be mandatory that before you enter the civil service, you must be certified.
“Government should create a National e-Government Academy, where all civil servants will be retuned for the new challenges of the future.
“When the cyberspace is weaponised, they will have the knowledge,’’ Uwaje said.
Dr Bayero Agabi, the president of Centre for Cyber Awareness and Development (CECAD), said that NiMES was not about the technology of things but about what technology could do for people.
Agabi, who is the convener of NiMES said that the programme was about how technology could make lives better.
He called on Nigerians to collaborate and birth ideas that would lead Nigeria into a knowledge and digital country.
