The National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, says it will collaborate with Baze University in its efforts to implement its Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan, SRAP 2021-2024.
The Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa, said this on Tuesday, during the university’s first Information Technology, Research, and Innovation week’ in Abuja
He said that the collaboration was necessary to position Nigeria in the continent for entrepreneurship.
Mr Inuwa stated that his agency was putting a lot of efforts and resources in ensuring that the bulk of graduates from universities and other tertiary institutions focused on creating jobs rather than seeking for jobs.
Represented by Yau Garba, the National Director of National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, NCAIR, Mr Inuwa focused on the topic, “Challenges and Opportunities of Entrepreneurship Startups.”
He said that the agency, through the implementation of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy, NDEPS, was working with startups as key contributors to developing an entrepreneurial economy.
“NITDA partners with companies that have global impact to solve challenges and create entrepreneur opportunities.
While the focus is not about profiting, ventures like Risk Capitalists and Angel Investors promote businesses that produce substantial number of jobs.
“We have ventures such as Uber, Jumia and the Nigerian unicorns like Flutterwave and Paystack needs to be replicated as much as possible to ensure a digital economy.
“We have a project called Hives and the idea is to build centres within the universities to support students’ and lecturers’ learning and research development”, he said.
He added that the agency also had the NCAIR, whose core mandate was to conduct Research and Development in emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence AI, Drones, Block Chain, Internet of things IoT, among others.
Mr Inuwa further said the Centre focused on capacity building and partnerships with relevant agencies and universities in areas of national interest.
According to him, NITDA has the support of some international organisations like Japan International Cooperation Agency on new models for incubation and acceleration programmes.
He charged the students to look forward to being a force in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, adding that Nigeria must not be left behind.
This is the reason we are looking forward to collaborating with Baze University in search of people who are willing to take risks and scale their ideas to provide jobs and create innovations that would make the world a better place,” he said.
NAN