Benjamin Babine, Abuja
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has indicated it’s plans to establish six Information and Communication Technology (ICT) parks to promote the socio-economic transformation of Nigeria.
Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, disclosed this in a statement at the weekend said the Commission would start with four ICT parks, one each in Abeokuta for the South-West; Enugu for the South-East, Maiduguri for the North-East and Kano for the North-West. He said that the parks for North-Central and South-South regions will be established soon.
The NCC stated that the ICT parks will provide innovation and digital fabrication laboratories for the ICT innovators and entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into products and prototypes.
He said the parks would serve as commercial hubs for the ICT capacity building and digital skills, create employment and entrepreneurial activities and facilitate smart city deployment across the country.
The Commission said the ICT parks, which would be located in each of the six geo-political zones, involved the construction and equipping of fully-functional tier-4 digital industrial complex with fast Internet service and constant power supply.
Danbatta said that the Commission embarked on the project in all the six geo-political zones of the country to build capacity of Nigerian youths in the areas of skill acquisition and innovation to join existing initiatives aimed at accelerating socio-economic transformation of the country.
“The NCC ICT Parks Project is another move by the current leadership of the Commission to boost youth digital skills acquisition, promote innovations, provide jobs for the teaming Nigerian youth and ultimately support the overall digital economy agenda of the Federal Government,” Danbatta said.
The NCC boss added that the parks would showcase various initiatives by the youths in areas of app development, software products and other innovations not only to local investors but also to the global investment community.
