From Theresa Egba, Abuja
As one of its objective on Information Technology (IT) capacity building and supporting innovation and creativity, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has trained about 100 corps members in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The acting Director General, NITDA, Dr. Vincent Olatunji, who disclosed this in Abuja at the launch of Open Source Software Development for corps members in FCT, said the essence of the training was to tackle unemployment in Nigeria.
“This is to equip the corps members to be able to start their own businesses and to be employers of labour. We don’t want them to finish their service and start looking for job here and there.
“This well thought out and articulated programme on IT youth empowerment and entrepreneurship through Open Source Software Development programme is targeted at developing and empowering graduate youths with IT requisite employability skills and at the same time assisting and monitoring them to become successful entrepreneurs thereby guaranteeing the well-being of the Nigerian youth.
“This is just the pilot of the programme and we hope to continue or expand it after a thorough evaluation of the impact on the corps members in achieving the objective of self reliance,” he stated.
According to him, NITDA is willing to partner private sector organisations and civil society group to stimulate the creative ability of the youths and unleash them for sustainable socio-economic transformation of the country.
He added that the agency also supports innovation hubs where youths are empowered, assisted and mentored to develop their own IT businesses as entrepreneurs in the area of software development, also supporting institutions and communities with various IT infrastructure intervention programmes to boost internet penetration across the country.
Reacting, the participants who have already started developing their own websites at the course of the training expressed their satisfaction, assuring they would make good use of what they have learnt.