NITDA donates computers to students and children with special skills
As Nigeria joins the rest of the world in commemorating the 2021 Universal Children’s Day, many students returned home with brand new laptops and desk computers, courtesy of the National Information Technology Development Agency NITDA’s efforts to improve and standardize a SMART digital education.
“The gesture to Nigerian students was borne out of the Agency’s strategic approach to developing emerging technology in Nigeria,” said Mallam Kashifu Inuwa, director general of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), at the 2021 Universal Children’s Day celebration in Abuja, which was organized by the Children of Africa Leadership and Values Development Initiative (CALDEV).
The NITDA chief, who was ably represented by Dr Usman Gambo Abdullahi, director Information Technology and Infrastructure Solutions ITIS, stated that the younger generation is the country’s future.
Mallam Kashifu stated that the Federal Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy FMoCDE was able to secure the approval of the Federal Executive Council for the implementation of the new National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy for a Digital Nigeria with a focus on Emerging Technologies and Innovations in order to realize President Muhammadu Buhari’s agenda of diversifying the nation’s economy.
“Technology drives everything, in realization of that, NITDA shifted it’s intervention to education sector and students in particular, with a view to encouraging their technological and innovative ideas,” he said.
He also stated that, since NITDA’s inception twenty years ago, its interventions have been spread across the country’s 774 local government areas by establishing learning centers to cater for research and other developing emerging technologies.
The NITDA Director General assured Nigerian students of the Agency’s commitment to providing IT infrastructures that would aid and support emerging technologies to students in Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Special Needs schools.
Earlier, Speaker of the House of Representatives Femi Gbajabiamila stated that deliberate efforts must be made to prepare Nigerian children and youth to become the desired leaders of tomorrow.
The Speaker stated that providing students with necessary technology is one of the most secure ways of securing the country’s future, giving people with diverse ideas the opportunity to be at the very top of governance.
Gbajabiamila also advocated for ongoing investment in the education of Nigerian youth, particularly in technological advancement, in order to ensure conformity with global transformational trends.
“We no longer exist in communal or national silos, but as part of a braid fabric of humanity in a global village where opportunities and challenges abound,” he said.
The impact of emerging technology, according to Hon. Gbajabiamila, is the creation of a new world in which a child in Lagos with a computer and an internet connection can compete for jobs in Texas or Bombay.
“Our job as leaders he emphasised is to ensure that every Nigerian child is educated and empowered to compete and succeed in this global market place of ideas and talent”.
