By Seun Adams
Phase 3, Africa’s leading digital infrastructure cum technology player, says to fortify the nation’s ICT readiness and foster a vibrant digital economy on the continent, enhanced industry collaborations on information communication technology development across sectors are imperative.
Morayo Nwabufor, in a statement quoted the Executive Chairman of Phase 3, Mr. Stanley Jegede, as making the disclosure at a recent career fair in partnership with the Nile Turkish University of Nigeria, in Abuja.
According to the statement this is part of the company’s corporate social responsibility and commitment to initiatives that will help reform the education sector for exponential talent growth that will enable multifaceted inventiveness and boost innovation capabilities of the nation’s teeming population as well as increase the employability of Nigerians in the fourth industrial revolution.
The Chairman said: “Phase 3 believes will activate a sustainable pool of 21st-century Nigerian talents to advance a globally competitive economy for a more digitized African continent that could be regarded as a technological power in five to ten years with the right regulations, policies, internal and regional partnerships, and of course investments.
“It will be recalled that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) indicated in its Q1 report released in April 2023 on Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that the ICT sector contributed more than 9% of the total real GDP. Thus, establishing an upward sector growth trajectory for the fourth time in four years with Q1 2020 and Q2 2021 being the two other instances.”
Jegede, said: “It cannot be overstated that ICT is both an enabler and service structure with a multiplier economic and social effect, especially in consideration of its immense capabilities of assuring the digital literacy and economic empowerment of a citizenry”.
Consequently, “active collaborations in critical sectors such as education is necessary for economic advancement coupled with investments in innovations between technology companies and institutions of knowledge. To stimulate innovative and consistent ICT infrastructure development and knowledge build across these institutions as well as youth population for an economically and socially sustainable future of Nigerians”.
Jegede, reaffirms, such collaborations are conduits for alleviating poverty, mitigating social impediments, and curbing vices by leveraging the power of technology to accelerate learning, diminish learning deficiency, and support skills development as a motivation to bridge the gaps in the digital infrastructure (connectivity, devices, and software) and literacy gaps and deficits in Nigeria.
That it will also disencumber human infrastructure from quality teacher capacity shortage to improving student skills backed by logistical and administrative systems to deploy and maintain tech architecture for growing top talents in the country, he said.
