By Balarabe Oshiafi
The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa has reiterated the Agency’s commitment to support, and catalyse the growth of the region’s innovation ecosystem to boost the region’s tech visibility and potentialities.
A news release made available to Expressday disclosed that Inuwa said this while delivering a Keynote Address during a ‘Stakeholders’ Engagement on the State of the Northern Innovation Ecosystem’, which held in Abuja on Friday.
Describing the event as “‘setting the sense of urgency for something to be done in favour of the Northern Innovation Ecosystem’, the Director-General noted that the timely call amplifies the opportunities, challenges as well as the need to build strategic partnerships toward achieving the overall goals.
“This platform has spurred the necessary conversations that we need to have in order to tackle some of the bottlenecks that have over the years stifled the growth of the ecosystem in the region. As an Agency under the Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, we are here to add our collective voice and render relevant support targeted at fostering economic growth and development in the North and Nigeria as a whole”, Inuwa affirmed.
The DG Aligned the thrusts of the discussions to the Federal Government’s ‘Renewed Hope Agenda’ and one of the Priority Areas of the President Bola Tinubu Adminstration, which is ‘Accelerating Diversification through Industrialisation, Digitisation, Creative Arts, Manufacturing and Innovation’.
According to the DG, the involvement of NITDA in the quest, further aligns with some pillars of the Agency’s Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan, which deal with ‘Nurturing an Innovative and Entrepreneurial Ecosystem’ and Forging Strategic Partnerships and Collaboration amongst others.
Inuwa expressed the hope that the Northern Innovation Ecosystem will be used to create jobs, solve agricultural problems, healthcare, transportation, education and many more in the region.
“In the North and Nigeria in general, our biggest opportunity is the large market and expansion we have, because we have a young population where more than 60% is under 25, which means they are digitally natives. Given the fact that our greatest resource as a country is human capital, we therefore, want to harness this population to make Nigeria a talent net exporter”, the DG declared.
