The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has committed to support and collaborate with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) working within the scope of the Agency’s Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan (SRAP 2021-2024) which also includes Aid for Rural Education and Access Initiative, (AREAI).
Mallam Abdullahi, the Director-General of NITDA, made this commitment to the Chief Executive Director of AREAI, Prince Gideon Olarewaju, and some members of the organization during a courtesy visit to NITDA headquarters in Abuja, recently.
Abdullahi disclosed that NITDA recently unveiled its Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan. The Strategic Roadmap And Plan (SRAP) is designed as a template or map to assist the agency to achieve the targeted plans through the execution of the strategic pillars.
In furtherance, the NITDA boss said, SRAP is anchored on 7 strategic pillars, namely, Developmental Regulations, Digital Literacy and Skills, Digital Transformation, Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Cyber Security, Emerging Technologies, and the seventh pillar is the promotion of Indigenous Content.
He noted that with the mandate and expertise from the Aid for Rural Education and Access Initiative, there is an opportunity for Nigerian youths to position themselves as leaders in terms of ICT and digital economy, digital literacy with skills and innovation.
The DG maintained that NITDA is particularly passionate about four areas of collaboration. These areas include digital literacy and skills, where there’s a target of 95 per cent digital literacy in Nigeria by 2030. He said during the COVID-19 lockdown, NITDA came up with a virtual academy that got enrollments of over 60,000 online students and beneficiaries.
The Agency is now working to upgrade the virtual academy to a standard mass open online courses platform like Coursera and Edx. He said NITDA is hoping that other related institutions will key into this and start providing skills and certificate courses for the citizens and even beyond the shores of the country.
On digital innovation and entrepreneurship, Abdullahi said NITDA is already coming up with something new that will impart knowledge to the rural communities. More so, he said, it is for the local content development of which the National Center for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics is one of the centres set up as an intervention centre to develop local content and upgrade the skills of the citizens.
He encouraged the AREAI to take advantage of the facility to identify talents and develop ideas in their areas of interest that will impact the girl child’s education, digital literacy and skills. He noted that it is a platform that the Agency has adopted to change the Nigerian trajectory through training and skill empowerment.
Moreover, Mallam Abdullahi is quite optimistic that the two agencies partnership will uplift the actualization of their similar mandates such as indigenous investors and innovation programs among others. He later advised on the constitution of the forum for discussions between NITDA and AREAI to come up with working tools to develop ideas into practicable reality.
Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Director of Aid for Rural Education and Access Initiative, Olarewaju recently commended the NITDA for the opportunity to showcase talents most especially in Digi-learn which is one of the smartest ways of imparting knowledge to the rural communities.
Conclusively, he hopes that the collaboration with NITDA will be a huge advantage to AREAI in harnessing potentials and expertise thereby bringing more innovation to the Rural communities in digital ways.
