Our Reporter
Engaging the nation’s digital potential can help boost development and grow employment, the Chief Executive Officer, Start Innovation Hub, Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, Hanson Johnson, has said.
Speaking at a forum in Owerri, Johnson said technology had created new opportunities for the government to achieve its goal of sustainable development.
He said: “Technology shapes the future and it can help to make it compatible with nature. It can help us to develop clean energy, transport possibilities with less emissions and low-energy houses to save resources.”
Through tech entrepreneurship, he noted that young Nigerians with potential could drive growth by identifying innovation solutions to development challenges and creating new opportunities and jobs.
He added: “It was estimated that by this year, there will be 1.5 million new digitised jobs across the globe. At the same time, 90per cent of organisations then had an IT skills shortage, while 75per cent of educators and students felt there was a gap in their ability to meet the skills needs of the IT workforce.
To prepare the talent needed for the digital economy, education must adapt as fast as the demand for IT skills is growing and evolving.”
He noted that technology-based start-ups can have an outsized impact on growth, as they contribute to innovation, productivity, and competitiveness.
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As such, he said the focus of entrepreneurship policy should be squarely on spurring more technology-based start-ups.
He said there should be policies that would help technology-based start-ups emerge and scale into larger firms that will generate long-lasting, high-paying jobs, increase innovation and productivity, and improve the global competition.
He said what the nation needs is a well-developed internet infrastructure, allowing entrepreneurs to remain connected on-the-go and ensuring fluid business operations.
He said entrepreneurs need support to access a range of financial aid from early-stage funding to capability development, business transformation and expansion, including matching funds, grants to offset costs and equity funding.
For entrepreneurs who want to succeed, Hanson said Nigeria provides a business ecosystem with a strong customer base.
These include 151million mobile connections, 95 million Internet users, 50 million smartphone connections and 37milion small and medium enterprises.
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