By Kenneth Imafidon
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy,Dr. Ibrahim Pantami, has emphasised that Nigeria must actively play active and a lead role in the 4th industrial revolution if it must catch up with the developing nations of the world.
The quickest way to deploy this is according to him is to deploy the country’s digital skills across all facets of it’s economy, national life and involvement of every stakeholders in the ICT landscape.
He expressed optimism that government is willing to partner the Academia in Information Technology Profession (AITP) and other stakeholders for Nigeria to play active and key roles in the 4th Industrial Revolution era.
He stated this during the International Conference on Information Technology in Education 2020 organized by the Academia in Information Technology Profession (AITP).
The conference has as it’s theme: Fostering IT Eco-system for Effective Realization of the 4th Industrial Revolution held Wednesday on Zoom Webinar.
Representing the Minister, the Director, Radio Monitoring and Survey, Engr. Kilyobas Binga, said part of the preparation for the 4th Industrial Revolution was the federal government initiative to re-name the MDA as Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy.
This, he added will deepen ICT and spur Nigerians to take a leading role in the 4th Industrial Revolution.
According to him, the 4th industrial revolution is a fusion of artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, Internet of Things (IoT), Quantum and Cloud computing, Big data, Intelligent Transport System and several other technologies noting that the theme of the conference is apt to the digital economy policy and strategy of Nigeria.
In his words, “we need to develop appropriate strategies to enable us to play an active and key role in the 4th Industrial Revolution era and develop the capacity of the people that would work in the new environment”.
Engr. Binga urged the participants and organizers of the conference to participate actively and avail the Ministry of the communiqué of the conference as the Ministry is willing to partner with the stakeholders including Academia in Information Technology Profession (AITP) to deepen the use and application of IT/ICT in order to launch Nigeria and indeed Africa to the 4th Industrial Revolution.
The Chairman of the occasion, the Honourable Speaker of the House of the Representative, Rt. Hon, Femi Gbajabiamila said that the conference is very important especially this period of President Muhammadu Buhari’s efforts to diversify the economy through the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT).
“We cannot be left behind as a nation and we need to take Information Technology to the rudimentary level and impact the culture of ICT at a tender age to our children. We need to build more schools with dedicated ICT facilities and make IT compulsory in the school system”.
Earlier, the President, Academia Information Technology Profession (AITP), Professor Afolayan. A. Obiniyi stated that AITP is an interest group of the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) which is aimed at promoting quality research in education with higher impact in computer science, information technology and relevant fields.
He said it is pertinent for the academia to be at the forefront of the 4th Industrial Revolution since we missed the 1st-3rd industrial revolution as a country and the need for them to take up some of the local materials in their research and domicile it in the country using the principle of the 4th industrial revolution.
“It is time to challenge ourselves to critical thinking and stir up our students to develop pragmatic minds that will bring development to this nation.
“There cannot be a good research day without a digital repository. Digital Repository is very vital to academic research and development in the 4th Industrial Revolution.” He said.