Governor Umar Ganduje of Kano State has commended the executive vice chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Danbatta for the commission’s on-going initiative of building Information and Communication Technology (ICT) parks across the six-geo political zones of the country.
According to saheliantimes.com, the governor gave the commendation when he visited the site of an ongoing construction of an ICT park by the NCC for the north-western zone located in Kano State.
He 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, saying the initiative would trigger socio-economic transformation of the area in no distant future.
It quoted Ganduje as saying: “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.”
He also applauded the quality of the construction work being undertaken by the NCC on the ICT Park and expressed appreciation for the foresight of the NCC for accommodating an expansion plan at the project site.
The ICT Park in is an initiative of the executive vice chairman of the NCC, Prof. Umar 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) 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 ICT park consists of laboratories for ICT innovations and commercial hubs providing capacity building to ICT startups and entrepreneurial activities in Kano and other states within the zone. It is designed to provide fast internet service (broadband) and constant power supply.
It also 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 an institutional mechanism to address the needs of technology-intensive, knowledge-based micro, small and medium Enterprises (SMEs).
The NCC ICT parks, which are being built across the six geo-political zones of the country, involve the construction and equipping of fully-functional Tier-4 Digital Industrial Complex (DIC) in each of the six geo-political zones of the country.
Speaking on the ICT Parks project recently, Danbatta said 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.
He said the ICT parks would help build capacity of 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 the country.
“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,” he said.
Based on its national structural spread, Danbatta no part of the country would be left out as beneficiary of the initiative. “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.
The ICT Park in Kano is expected to be completed and inaugurated at the end of the year.
