ISPON ready for Software Capacity Building and Job Creation in Nigeria

The Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria(ISPON) has concluded plans to organize a Roundtable on how software development can be used for capacity building and job creation in Nigeria.

In a statement made available to us by Mr. Moses Braimah, Chairman, Commitee on Publicity, ISPON, The brainstorming session which will take place in Lagos is expected to focus on the short-term and long-term strategy for generating 5 million jobs in the next 10 years to support the growing Nigerian economy.

According to the National Job Creation Committee (NJCC) chaired by business mogul, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, there is inadequate trained manpower to build and manage infrastructure and systems in our economy today despite our 150 million large population.

While there are at least 12 million unemployed Nigerians as reported by the NJCC, there is dearth of skilled manpower for even the most basic of the country’s requirements. Experts believe that the Information Technology industry is capable of becoming one of the top three employers of labour for the emerging and growing Nigerian Economy.

Collins Onuegbu, Chairman ISPON Capacity Building Committee, says “ISPON is in the process of developing a roadmap on how Nigeria can create 5 million jobs in the next 10 years to serve the IT industry and the economy. Our aim is to plug into the vision of the government on capacity building and job creation in order to put Nigeria economy on the right track and reduce the level of unemployment.”

The session will be moderated by Tomi Davies, Chief Operating Officer of Mobitel. Delegates will include stakeholders from various professional training institutes, user communities, relevant professional associations, NGOs and students.

The theme of the Roundtable is; Capacity Building and Job Creation: Role of Software development.

Speaking further Onuegbu says “effort will be made to answer some pertinent questions such as: How many are we? Where are we employed? What IT skills are available? What does the economy require in a short term and long term basis? and How do we build the necessary capacity?

This Roundtable is part of a series that would be used to develop a roadmap for the actualization of ISPON agenda for capacity building and job creation for the economy.