If the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) collaborate, the one year spend by Nigerian youth for the compulsory national service could be an opportunity for them to acquire talents that are related to emerging technologies.
The Director General of NITDA, Mr. Kashifu Inuwa made the observation while accepting proposal from the Director General of NYSC, Brig Gen Yushau Ahmed, when the NYSC team paid a courtesy visit to Inuwa.
Inuwa expressed the Agency’s willingness to collaborate with the Corps saying, “We are looking at positioning Nigeria to become the global talent factory and to do that, your agency is critical because all graduates pass through your Organisation”.
“If we can collaborate, we can use that one year they would spend serving the nation to change their lives”, he noted.
He stated that “there is a global talent shortage and if Nigeria can position itself by training people and conveniently providing 2 Million developers in two years it can earn about $40B from the pool of 2Million developers, which will invariably also help address the Agency’s remittance challenge as well.
“Looking at the fact that Nigeria can be the talent hub of the world, given its competitive advantage to close the gap, we have identified your Organization as a key partner, if we must achieve the projections”, he noted.
“I am hoping that our collaboration will not only bring young Nigerians together to be trained on how to build mobile applications and systems but will also connect them to opportunities”.
“We are strategising on how to expand the training to other States as we plan to pilot it in the six geopolitical zones but if we can work together with you, it will be much easier for us to get the talents because you have graduates”, he said.
He assured the team from the NYSC that NITDA is interested in going beyond granting their request by collaborating to ensure that interested Corp Members are trained to become advance developers.
In his remark, the NYSC Director General said the purpose of the courtesy call was to appreciate NITDA’s performance generally and the existing collaboration between the Corp and the Agency over the years which he noted have been laudable, especially with the provision of Digital Economy Centres at NYSC Camps across some states.
Ahmed said the gesture has gone a long way in providing Information Technology support to the organisation’s State Secretariat and the Scheme in general.
“I want to use this opportunity to solicit for NITDA’s support in assisting NYSC with some Information Technology equipment for the smooth take off our our newly constructed Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Centre in our National Directorate Headquarters”, Ahmed said.
According to the NYSC DG, the Corp has had an ICT Centre at Area 1, Garki, Abuja but it became necessary to erect a bigger ICT Centre which he added stands at 90% completion.
Ahmed assured DG NITDA and his management team that NYSC as a Scheme will continue to support the Agency in its set target of achieving 95% digital literacy by 2030.
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