The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) is set to leverage the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to get at least two million developers in two years, the Director-General of NITDA, Mal. Kashifu Inuwa has disclosed.
Mal. Kashifu disclosed this while receiving the Director-General of NYSC, Brig Gen.Yushau Dogara Ahmed in his office in Abuja recently.
“We have identified the National Youth Service Corp as a key partner if we must achieve the projections of two million developers in two years,” he said.
He argued that there is a global talent shortage. Thus, Nigeria must position itself by training people and earning about $ 40 billion from the pool of two million developers, which will invariably help address the NITDA’s remittance challenge as well.
Inuwa told his guests that the Agency had since started implementing some of the initiatives, like training One Million Developers in 2022 which some of the Youth Corps Members were beneficiaries.
“I am hoping that our collaboration will not only bring young Nigerians together to be trained on how to build mobile applications and systems but will also connect them to opportunities”.
According to the NITDA Boss, a total of about 124 youths are trained and graduated every month from the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, adding that, although this is the basic training, there are other categories, including intermediary and advanced.
He assured the team from the NYSC that NITDA is interested in going beyond granting their request by collaborating to ensure that interested Corp Members are trained to become advanced developers.
The National Director of the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR), Engr Ya’u Garba took the visiting team through the workings and prospects of the Centre as he highlighted the different programmes intended to scale awareness and adoption of Emerging Technologies.
Meanwhile, the Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig Gen.Yushau Dogara Ahmed in his brief said the purpose of the courtesy call was to appreciate NITDA’s performance generally and the existing collaboration between the Corp and the Agency over the years which he noted have been laudable, especially with the provision of Digital Economy Centres at NYSC Camps across some states.
Ahmed said the gesture has gone a long way in providing Information Technology (IT) support to the Organisation’s State Secretariat and the Scheme in general.
“I want to use this opportunity to solicit NITDA’s support in assisting NYSC with some Information Technology (IT) equipment for the smooth take of our newly constructed Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Centre in our National Directorate Headquarters,” Ahmed said.
According to the NYSC DG, the Corp has had an ICT Centre at Area 1, Garki, Abuja but it became necessary to erect a bigger ICT Centre which he added stands at 90% completion. Ahmed assured DG NITDA and his management team that NYSC as a Scheme will continue to support the Agency in its set target of achieving 95% digital literacy by 2030.