Youths urges Delta State Govt to reopen ICT Innovation Hub, Asaba
- Empower students, others with ICT skills
- Urges Delta to emulate other State to boost IT skill
By Tony Nwakaegho
Stakeholders in the Information Information Communications Technology (ICT) ecosystem have been singing in discordant tunes as to why Delta State should be leap flogging in the ICT sector because students, among others from the state have not been exposed adequately to IT skill in this era of digital economy.
Investigation by Gentechnews has shown that some time ago a Delta State Innovation Hub donated by Zenith Bank was domiciled along Okpanam Road Asaba, but the hub was short lived due to the closure of the hub by the State government.
Finding shows that the decision by Delta State to shut down its innovation hub has left teeming youths of the state disenchanted.
The innovation hubs in other climes are meant to promote local innovation, encourage relevant actors to share knowledge early in the development process, build Startups, create employment foster entrepreneurial cooperation, support networking among local stakeholders as well as create links to investors and international organisations.
However, in Nigeria some state governments facilitate and fund Innovation hubs to serve as centres of excellence for creativity, development of information technology and as a means of youth empowerment to channel their creative energy into a potentially productive source for their communities.
The founder of an Asaba based ICT firm, who craved anonymity said that the implications of continuous closure of the Hub are enormous which include brain drain, youth unemployment among others.
He lamented that there is brain drain now in the state as many people residing in Delta state have left the state to better-equipped hubs in Port Harcourt and Lagos after acquiring ICT skills and mentorship and decided to establish in those states while Delta remains the loser in term of establishing businesses where they will pay taxes and levies to the state government.
“ If government train youths in Delta state from programming to hardware engineering they can get jobs in or outside of the country, as well be self -employed with their talents which will help in addressing youth unemployment,” he added.
Taiwo Nwaokolo, a student said “I would like the government to look into this issue of closure of the Hub because it is very important as I had planned to come and do my internship in Delta State Innovation Hub before learning of its closure. In other states, youths are made attend Start-ups and Hackathons to meet with like minds to bring innovative solutions to indigenous problems in the country through technology.”
Amaka Mordi also a student, appealed to Delta state government to look into this issue, adding that it will help to spring up starts-up that will create jobs in the state.
According to her, “Hub is a place of meeting, where you meet people that studied humanities, social science and languages, among others. brainstorming to learn IT because IT is thriving globally. Delta State should not be foot dragging in the ICT sphere as it has Delta State University, Anwai Campus; Delta State Polytechnic, Ogwasi-uku; Delta state Polytechnic, Ozoro; Delta State University, Abaraka and Delta State Polytechnic, Oghara.”
In Lagos State, ICT has been given its pride of place as the administration of Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu have been exposing students every year while on holiday to free ICT trainings and this has in no small way made most of the students in Lagos to be ICT compliant.
Lagos State Government in 2017 launched two Coding Centres – Rabiatu Primary School and Akande Dahunsi Memorial School – sponsored by 9mobile for CodeLagos, an initiative of the Lagos State Ministry of Education, with a call on the private sector to key into the initiative designed to make the coding education framework accessible to every student in the State.
The Special Adviser to the State Governor on Education, Mr. Obafela Bank-Olemoh said “this new initiative is aimed at using technology to drive the economy and infrastructure development of the State as it is envisioned to make Lagos the technology frontier in Africa.”
According to him, the CodeLagos project will equip students and pupils with the necessary digital skills to meet the growing demand for technology solutions, approach the world of work as problem solvers while also sharpening their logical reasoning, problem-solving and creative thinking skills.
The Special Adviser reiterated that CodeLagos aims to teach at least one million Lagos students to code by 2019 and foster necessary skills to create sustainable solutions to social challenges and create employment opportunities.
The Edo State Government had also launch a new tech hub and tech training facility in the state with support from the state’s skill acquisition initiative, EdoJobs, to train over 1,000 people in various ICT skills and support tech innovators grow their businesses.
Evidently, Edo State’s tech hub took a clue from the ICT initiatives of the Lagos State Government as the Lagos State Government has been prioritizing ICT education for the past years with its efforts gaining even more steam with the Code Lagos initiative.
The Code Lagos Initiative provides programming education to Lagosians and aims to train one million residents coding by 2030.
According to the Governor’s Senior Assistant on Skills Development and Job Creation, Ms. Ukinebo Dare, Edo Innovation Hub is key to the integration of Edo State’s digital economy.
Edo State Government has also organised for public secondary school teachers a three-month ICT training by the Post-primary Education Board (PPEB), in collaboration with Azeessworld Technology Ltd.as part of Governor Godwin Obaseki administration’s reforms in the education sector.
“This government believes in developing our teachers. We believe the Edo teacher is the best anywhere in the world, and we will continue to train and retrain them on best teaching practices,” the governor assured.
Earlier, the Chairman of Post-primary Education Board (PPEB), Gabriel Oiboh, said “the three months training will help bridge the gap between teachers trained in an era when ICT was not available and their students born in the digital era driven by ICT.”
Oiboh, commended the governor for his passion for result-oriented reforms in the education sector and noted that 500 teachers and over 130,000 students of public schools were earlier trained on coding at the ICT centre
Investigation also revealed that students and teachers from Osun State in 2017 were introduced to Opon Imo which is the use of tablets that contains the school syllabus and other auxiliaries which of course help those who could not afford to buy textbooks.
The Opon Imo which is embedded with several textbooks and past questions assisted the students while the burden of having to buy textbooks was lifted.
Enugu State has taken a clue in the pursuit of boosting its digital economy and empowerment of the youths as the state government want to establish technology hubs in the State.
Enugu State Government recently announced its plans to establish Enugu Technology Hub and Youth Innovation Centres at Enugu City and Obollo Afor.
Commissioner for Science and Technology, Mr Obi Kama, in a statement, said that all-important projects, initiated by Gov. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi to bring technology-driven innovations down to the grassroots for digital economy, have reached advanced stage.
Kama also said the target of Gov. Ugwuanyi’s administration is to turn Enugu into a Technology tourism state within the next three years.
“This will be done by bringing in the best Technology solutions and innovations with a view to increasing the state Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by at least 15 per cent,” he said.
The Commissioner explained that the hub will also create over 1,500 small-scale technical businesses in the region; employing over 10,000 youth within a short time.
According to him, the services that will be rendered at the Technology Hub centres are computer training programmes, solar skills acquisition training, computer coding and website designs, graphic designs, confectionaries and hands-on technical skills training, among others, for the benefit of the people of Enugu State, especially the youth.
Others are Web application development, mobile app, software development, website design and hosting, professional graphics, Adobe Suits, data science and analytics, business intelligence, agro business and automation and Ease of Doing Business will also be taught at the centres.
The commissioner stated that the centres will be equipped with computer sets, solar power source, 100 KVA Generator, internet access, training tools and consumables.
He pointed out that the facilities, to be installed at the centres, will be state-of-the-art equipment in line with Gov. Ugwuanyi’s vision for ICT and technical skills acquisition for employment generation and wealth creation.
Kama said that Enugu State has been rated the highest academic hub in Southern Nigeria over the years, adding that the state hosts over 10 indigenous Universities, Polytechnic and Colleges of Education which turned out first class and second class graduates in the areas of Mathematics, Sciences and Engineering Technology, among others.
The Commissioner said that some of the graduates have gone abroad for sophisticated skills acquisition, adding that the Enugu State Technology Hub intends to drive technology innovation down home.
“It is designed to discourage our youth from travelling to Lagos and countries like India and China to acquire technical skills. Those skills you travel abroad to acquire, will be at your doorsteps,” he said.
According to him, the hub will not only groom them, it will also provide a ‘Technological Cluster for Tech Start Ups’ for those who want to own businesses but may not have enough capital to rent offices and start up.
“It will create enabling atmosphere for them to start businesses with ease,” he said.
Kama said that the targeted candidates for the programmes are graduates of Universities and Polytechnic, who would want to make a career in professional ICT and technology-related disciplines.
He said that non-graduates with some technical skills, entrepreneurs and prospective farmers and artisans will also be accommodated.
Kama said that the project will serve as an interface between Technology giants in Microsoft and Enugu Tech Start ups.
Pundits in the ICT space mulled that Delta State as an oil producing State should take its place as a pace setter by making ICT compulsory in theory and practical for all schools in the state.
It will be recalled that Engr. Mathew Tsekiri, commissioner for Science and Technology, Delta State, when asked about the closure of the recently by an online media, reassured that the state government has decided to reopen the hub as renovation work is on-going to reopen the facility for use by Delta youths.
In his words “We are renovating hub, once we finish the renovation then we will start activities, it is going to be one of the best Hubs in the country.
“The MoU we signed with Mobile Software solution for the running of the hub has expired and we have decided to run the hub by ourselves.
“We are going to make it a proper education hub offering certified ICT training for graduates seeking for jobs, when we train them they will be employable or self-employed. We are going to offer high earned ICT courses.
“We have put the structure in place to manage the hub. We are not going to give it out to anybody to manage for us.
“We intend to collaborate with ICT companies such as Google, Facebook among others, but we just want to get the hub up and running first.
We have the resources to get the hub running we are not going to seek resources from any multinational ICT giants.”
The question on every lip is why the hub has remained shut despite the promise from the commissioner for Science and Technology.
The is the need to look beyond the hub and begin to engage Deltans who have excelled in their own right
Stakeholders are also advocating that the Delta State Government should as a matter of urgency establish Technology Hub centres in all the senatorial districts where computer training programmes, solar skills acquisition training, computer coding and website designs, graphic designs, confectionaries and hands-on technical skills training, Web application development, mobile app, software development, website design and hosting, professional graphics, Adobe Suits, data science and analytics, business intelligence, agro business and automation and Ease of Doing Business among others, for the benefit of the people of Delta State, especially the youth.
Delta State should equip these hubs with state of the arts gadget and employ those who will be training the students and others for free and to certified them at the end of the programs.
Gentechnews is of the view that this initiative will go a long way to create wealth, reduce youth restiveness and make them to be employers of labour.
