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NITDA inaugurates e-Nigeria organising committee

By on July 26, 2016

The National Information Technology Development Agency has inaugurated the Local Organising Committee for the ninth eNigeria Conference and Expo, the flagship Information and Communications Technology event hosted by the IT regulatory and implementing agency.

Inaugurating the 2016 eNigeria committee, the acting Director-General of NITDA, Dr. Vincent Olatunji, said that  the event had gone full circle to become the clearing house for adopting relevant ideas and innovation for defining and accelerating national economic growth.

Olatunji, who was represented by the Deputy Director of Corporate Strategy and Research, Mr. Mohammad Yelwa, said the conference would bring key players of the Nigerian innovation ecosystem and foreign stakeholders together to share experiences, identify challenges and propose strategies for using ICT-enabled innovation and entrepreneurship to diversify the economy and create jobs.

He said, “It is in this line that this year’s theme is, ‘Leveraging on IT innovation for economic diversification’. This will identify with the current goals of the Nigerian government to diversify the economy; cope with the rapid dwindling revenues from the oil sector; and create a new vista of revenue directly through ICT or by using ICT to aid other non-oil sectors.”

He said, “One of the highlights of the e-Nigeria 2016 is the section on Start-ups and Innovation to underscore NITDA’s new work thrust to promote Nigeria’s start-up innovation ecosystem across all the country’s zones and also attract potential investors into this vital growth segment of the global ICT economy.

“We are inviting innovation efforts from within Africa to peer with local innovation efforts and also inviting global stakeholders, particularly angel investors and promoters of innovator hubs to be part of the 2016 eNigeria as we in NITDA firm up to promote the national agenda on economic diversification.”

He said NITDA plans to have global and local players with strong start -up-pull such as Uber, Facebook, Jumia, Konga and the likes to join the league of participants at the event.

According to him, NITDA will also be leveraging on its local and international collaborations such as its partnership with the Dubai World Trade Centre, organisers of GITEX Technology Week to deepen the quality of participation. .

The membership of the LOC was drawn from various bodies, including the Nigeria Computer Society, representatives of relevant government ministries, departments and agencies, the media, interest groups and other stakeholders.

 

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