ICT is effective tool for economy transformation –NOUN VC

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is an effective tool for transforming the economy and improving the lot of the population, Vice Chancellor, National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Prof. Vicent Ado Tenebe has said. He stated this on Saturday during a conference with the theme: “Shaping Africa Software Industry Towards a Digital Economy”, organized by […]

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is an effective tool for transforming the economy and improving the lot of the population, Vice Chancellor, National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Prof. Vicent Ado Tenebe has said.
He stated this on Saturday during a conference with the theme: “Shaping Africa Software Industry Towards a Digital Economy”, organized by Coders4Africa in partnership with National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) in Abuja.
Represented by the Director, Public Service, Dr. Muktar Alhassan, he said rapid developments in ICT have given rise to news challenges and opportunities in the way nations, corporate bodies and individuals conduct business in a global economy.
Prof. Tenebe said: “These developments have meant that today’s nations have become more interdependent than at any time before.”
He said the aforementioned has no doubt put Nigeria and other developing countries under pressure to embrace new technologies and embark on economic transformation that would bring sustainable development leading to a globally competitive economy.
He said despite the persistent challenges in the formulation and implementation of sound economic policies, Nigeria had managed to achieve a certain level of development, largely powered by its enigmatic oil wealth.
The Vice Chancellor said Coders4Africa and the NOUN were passionate about youth empowerment and entrepreneurial development, hence the need for the conference.
“It addresses the challenge of Youth unemployment in Nigeria by focusing on ICT-based entrepreneurial development of young Nigerians and transforming them from job seekers to job creators,” he said.
He urged participants to interact with professionals in the coding business with the aim of becoming part of them.
Meanwhile, the CEO and co-Founder, Coders4Africa, Amadou Daffe has said thousands of Nigeria’s young software developers can service the United States just like India is doing.
Daffe stated this on Saturday during a conference with the theme: “Shaping Africa Software Industry towards a Digital Economy”, organized by Coders4Africa in partnership with National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) in Abuja.
He said: “Software development is where you can have a young person who graduated from a university in computer science, such a person can pick up coding very quickly. All he needs is a brain and a laptop; you can train him to work locally in Nigeria and also in companies outside of Nigeria.”
Daffe said an army of young people who build software can serve the world, stressing that they can be called upon to solve problems in health, education, agriculture among others.
According to him, the demand for software developers is huge in the world, adding: “In the US, we have about a thousand of Job opportunities for software developers every day.”
He urged young internet wizards to enroll for the required training so as to be successful in the software development.
 Code4Africa is a full-server software development and consulting company that trains, hires and manages African technology teams.