Nigeria’s Minister of Communication Technology, Omobola Johnson, reassured the nation yesterday that her department is committed to its mandate of promoting the growth of Nigeria’s ICT industry, with particular focus on software development.
“This will provide the opportunity for Nigeria to raise software giants that would create jobs and wealth, while becoming regional and global players such as Indian IT service providers like Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Cognizant, Wipro and HCL Technologies. These are indigenous companies that were created, nurtured and established in India, but servicing global markets,” she said.
Johnson made the remarks at the conclusion of the first edition of Techlaunchpad, a forum which was created in 2012 to identify issues in local software entrepreneurs and to reach a solution to solve them.
“What we are doing today is part of the bigger plan that will strengthen innovation ecosystem and grow the digital economy in Nigeria. We are working to refocus the efforts of talented software developers in the country of not just writing code and developing applications, but creating successful and viable companies around the software that they are developing to create jobs and wealth,” she added.
Johnson concluded that once the Information Technology Developers Entrepreneurship Accelerator (iDEA) and Technology Innovation Programme (Techlaunchpad) are fully operational, that it will pave the way forward for Nigeria in assisting software entrepreneurs to build successful businesses.
Charlie Fripp – Consumer Tech editor
