Mr. Austin Okere, Founder/Vice Chairman of CWG Plc, has accepted to chair the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters Association (NITRA) third quarter forum, structured to look at banking, ICT and FinTech, which is presently livewire of the Nigerian economy.
“Thank you for the invitation to chair this event. I am honoured and pleased to accept. I trust I shall be receiving more information in due course,” Okere said in a personally signed terse email dated August 14, 2017, and addressed to NITRA.
The Nigeria Information Technology Reporters Association (NITRA), an umbrella body for journalists reporting information and communications technology in Nigeria is organising the third edition of its quarterly forum entitled “Digital Payment: Prospects and Challenges of a Financially Inclusive Nigeria.”
The event, which is scheduled to hold on September 29, 2017 at Eko Hotels, Victoria Island, Lagos, will not only highlight the challenges and opportunities in the FinTech space in Nigeria, but will also provide knowledge and networking platform that will bring the Nigeria Fintech industry at par with its counterparts across the globe.
The event also offers the Banking, ICT and FinTech industries an excellent opportunity to showcase some of their achievements before the largest gathering of the sector players under one roof. It affords them the opportunity to share their contributions to Digital Payments as well as efforts towards actualizing financial inclusion in the country.
Digital disruption is changing how traditional banking services, payments, and remittances are now offered in the digital economy. Almost all sectors of financial services including payments, money transfers, banking and more are being re-imagined by non-traditional providers and FinTechs, while the traditional incumbent providers are reinventing themselves very quickly to understand better, the puzzle presented by FinTech and how they can leverage on the digital movement.
Austin Okere, though the Founder of CWG Plc, Nigeria’s largest system integration company, he has since June 2015 assumed the position of Vice Chairman and a Director, allowing Mr. James Agada to take the position of Chief Executive Officer in a restructuring move by the company.
A check on his profile shows that he serves as a member of the World Economic Forum Business Council on Innovation and Intrapreneurship. He serves on the Board of the National Competiveness Council of Nigeria and Initiative for Global Development, a Washington based nonprofit organization that drives poverty reduction by catalyzing business growth and investment in the developing world.
He is a Fellow of the Institute of Directors of Nigeria and serves as a member of the National Telecoms Advisory Council of the Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON). He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Directors of Nigeria, as well as a Fellow of the Nigerian Computer Society (NCS).
Okere is Entrepreneur in Residence, Columbia Business School, New York.
