To achieve its goal of achieving a 95 percent digital literacy level in Nigeria by 2030, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) said that it had kicked off “many initiatives” training Nigerians.
This was disclosed on Tuesday by the agency’s Director-General, Kashifu Abdullahi, while speaking on the theme, ‘Technology Renaissance for Innovation and Productivity’.
The Innovation, Research, and Software event hosted by the National Association of Computing Students was held in Abuja.
Abdullahi highlighted the benefits of a digitally literate economy, citing examples of rich nations that generate more revenues from their digital economy than from “resources like crude oil”.
He said, “Today, even the richest countries are getting money from digital economy than resources like crude oil.
“At NITDA, we crafted our strategic roadmap and action plan 2021 to 2024 with seven strategic pillars to help youths benefit from the national digital economy policy.
READ ALSO: How Zwarttech Is Bridging the Software Talent Gap For Tech Companies
“We have a target of achieving 95 percent digital literacy by 2030. So, we have launched many initiatives to train people.
“This year alone, we have trained close to 200,000 Nigerians in different areas of digital literacy.
“We also have the NITDA academy, which is equally a self-learning platform.
“The government is developing a framework to license private organisation to also carry out digital literacy training, because we know that government cannot do it alone.
“We understand that Information Technology is dynamic. So, what we are trying to do is to help youths use innovation to create prosperity for our country.
“Just recently, we identified five start-ups, and we are working with the Nigeria Export Promotion Council to give them between N15m to N20m each as a grant to develop their products.”
