The Chief Executive Officer of MainOne, Ms. Funke Opeke has identified some bottleneck stifling the development of local content in Nigeria.
The bottlenecks, according to her areinadequate infrastructure, lack of electricity, broadband, good roads, access to funding by Startups and lack of collaboration between the Universities and the corporate world.
Opeke, who delivered the Lead paper, ‘Developing Nigeria’s Tech Ecosystem; Imperative for Improving Local Content’, at the opening of a two-day maiden Edition of ‘Emerging Technologies Research And ICT Innovation Forum, organised by the Nigerian Communications Commission, noted that tackling the aforementioned challenges should be the government’s priority.
By the time, the government is able to address these challenges, there will be improvement in the provision of marketable local content by startups that need to move their ideas through to prototypes, incubation and breaking into the market.
“Startups need to be encouraged and subsidized with tax incentives and grants to further assist them, in providing scalable and local content that can also scale globally,” she said.
She further warned that the country is headed for doom should it ignore IT development and continue with the current trends of over dependence on oil.
Meanwhile, the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, has said the ‘Emerging Technologies Research And ICT Innovation Forum’ became necessary to promote local content, with emphasis on the Tech ecosystem, identifying unmet needs and facilitate Public Private Partnership, (PPP)”.
Danbatta, who was represented by the Director, Legal and Regulatory Services, NCC, Mrs. Yetunde Akinloye, emphasized that the importance of the Forum is to enhance the ability of indigenous companies to, maximally explore and exploit local opportunities, as well as, remain globally competitive.
“With the growing pressure of realization, every government and other players in the industry are charged with the burden of finding ways, to ensure that they remain competitive and capable,” she added.