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Femi Abdullahi
Kano State Governor, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has joined millions of Nigerians to commend the Executive Vice-Chairman Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Pof. Umar Garba Danbatta for the ongoing construction of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) parks across the six-geo political zones of the country.
TheStory gathered that the ICT Park in is an initiative of the Executive Vice-Chairman of the NCC, Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, to provide Innovation Labs and Digital Fabrication Laboratories (Fablabs) for use by ICT innovators and entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into products and prototypes.
The Tier-4 Digital Industrial Complex (DIC), when completed, will provide a Commercial Hub for ICT capacity building and digital skills, create employment and entrepreneurial activities and facilitate smart city deployment across the Digital Industrial Complex. The parks are designed to provide fast internet service (broadband) and constant power supply.
Speaking during his visit to the ongoing ICT Park construction site for the North-Western zone located in Kano State Kano, Governor Ganduje acknowledged the efforts and commitment of the Danbatta-led NCC in ensuring increased digital access for fast-tracking digital innovation across Nigeria and the North-West in particular.
The governor, according to the report published by a Kano-based online media, Saheliantimes.com, said that the initiative would trigger socio-economic transformation of the area in no distant future.
Ganduje said: “Realising that a major project that resonates with the global vision for the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) is being vigorously driven by NCC leadership, shows the kind of socio-economic transformation we should expect through ICT across Nigeria in the next few years.
“For the ICT Park being built here in Kano to serve the North-West zone, the government and citizens of Kano State are grateful to Prof. Danbatta and his team for bringing development to the state and the zone at large.”
Governor Ganduje, who also expressed appreciation for the foresight of the NCC for accommodating an expansion plan at the project site, applauded the quality of the construction work being undertaken by the NCC on the ICT Park.
The ICT Park consists of laboratories for ICT innovations and Commercial Hubs providing capacity building to ICT startups and entrepreneurial activities, in Kano State.
Meanwhile, speaking on the ICT Parks project recently, Prof Danbatta stated that the project was conceived and designed to support the federal government’s ICT-related policies and programmes by facilitating the availability and accessibility of ICT services across the country, promote their usage across all sectors and ultimately address youth unemployment in the country.
Danbatta, who said based on its national structural spread, no part of the country will be left out as beneficiaries of the initiative, also explained that the initiating was designed to propel socio-economic transformation in the country. He added that the ICT Parks will help build capacity for the teeming population of Nigerian youths in the area of skill acquisition and innovation by complementing existing initiatives geared towards accelerating socio-economic transformation of Nigeria.h
Danbatta said: “The whole idea of putting these two things (i.e. skill acquisition and innovation) at the forefront of this very important initiative is to produce youths that can be self-reliant, generate employment for themselves and for other Nigerians.”
The NCC ICT Parks Project is another move by the current leadership of the Commission to boost youth digital skills acquisition, promote innovations, provide jobs for the teeming Nigerian youth and ultimately support the overall digital economy agenda of the Federal Government,” he said.
He said the parks will support software development, incubation and hardware development. “We also hope to see innovative technologies that will leverage the broadband network, which the Commission is deepening in order to socially and economically transform our communities and societies.”
The EVC, however, urged the potential and would-be beneficiaries of the project, especially the youths, to be ready to leverage the initiative as it promises to empower them socially and economically.
“I would like to send out a very important message to our youths, especially those who are currently occupied with various innovative applications, those who have acquired the skills but are looking for where to put the skills fruitful engagements, by incubating them, commercialising them, or giving publicity to these excellent initiatives, to be ready to leverage the facilities,” he said.
ICT park comprises an area or location with concentration of all ICT facilities, which enables a concerted leap into the digital age by creating a dynamic environment in which local talent is incubated, cultivated, and shared. ICT park is best tested and trusted institutional mechanism to address the needs of technology-intensive, knowledge-based Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
The Kano project is expected to be completed and inaugurated at the end of the year.
