The Executive Chairman of Phase 3, Africa’s leading digital infrastructure cum technology player, Stanley Jegede, has asked where would Nigeria be in the fourth industrial revolution that is manifesting in the world.At a recent career fair in partnership with the Nile Turkish University of Nigeria, Abuja, Stanley Jegede believed in activating what he called “a sustainable pool of 21st-century Nigerian talents” to advance a globally competitive economy for a more digitized African continent.
He said that the system can be regarded as a technological power in five to ten years with the right regulations, policies, internal and regional partnerships, and investments.
The Phase 3 executive chairman said: “it cannot be overstated that ICT is both an enabler and service structure with a multiplier economic and social effects, especially in consideration of its immense capabilities of assuring the digital literacy and economic empowerment of a citizenry.
“Active collaborations in critical sectors such as education is necessary for economic advancement, coupled with investments in innovations between technology companies and institutions of knowledge.
“This will stimulate innovative and consistent ICT infrastructure development and knowledge build across these institutions as well as youth population for an economically and socially sustainable future of Nigerians.”
Jegede reaffirmed that such collaborations are conduits for alleviating poverty, mitigating social impediments, and curbing vices by leveraging the power of technology to accelerate learning, diminish learning deficiency and support skills development as a motivation to bridge the gaps in the digital infrastructure (connectivity, devices, and software) and literacy gaps and deficits in Nigeria.
He argued that it would also disencumber human infrastructure from quality teacher capacity shortage to improving student skills, backed by logistical and administrative systems to deploy and maintain tech architecture for growing top talents in the country.
He suggested network corporate social responsibility and commitment to initiatives to help reform the education sector for exponential talent growth to engender multifaceted inventiveness and boost innovation capabilities of the nation’s teeming population as well as increase the employability of Nigerians.
It will be recalled that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) indicated in its Q1 report released in April 2023 on Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that the ICT sector contributed more than nine percent of the total real GDP.
This figure has establishing an upward sector growth trajectory for the fourth time in four years with Q1 2020 and Q2 2021 being the two other instances.
