Businesses will certainly not be as usual post-COVID-19. Out of the ashes of the pandemic will rise the ‘new normal’. Innovation and proliferation of infrastructure will play major roles while new skills will be needed to drive the new era. LUCAS AJANAKU writes that the Information Communication Technology Parks being built in the six geo-political zones of the country by the NCC, if properly managed, will catalyse digital skills acquisition, promote innovations, create jobs and boost the government’s digital economy agenda.
THE world is fast changing and there is a need to sail with the wind and direct its movment.
Digital skills are in hot demand and will continue to be, especially during the post-COVID-19 era.
The CEO, Rack Centre, Ayotunde Coker, said the era of ‘new normal’ would require innovation while business continuity would be underpinned by existing infrastructure.
He said while working from home (WFH) had become the norm, there would, however, be semi-flex office staff locations while outsourcing to ensure business sustenance would become inevitable.
It is perhaps in the realisation of this need that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is creating initiative to build digital skills acquisition and provide jobs for the youth, promote innovation, and facilitate the delivery of the Federal Government’s digital economy agenda.
The commission is building ICT parks across the country’s six geo-political zones.
An 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 parks are best tested and trusted institutional mechanisms to address the needs of technology-intensive, knowledge-based Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) globally.
Essentially, the regulator said the four main objectives of establishing ICT Parks were to provide Innovation Labs and Digital Fabrication Laboratories (Fablabs) for use by innovators and entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into products and prototypes; 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.
ICT parks infrastructure
The project involves the construction and equipping of fully-functional Tier-4 Digital Industrial Complex (DIC) in each of the six geo-political zones across the country
The concept, if executed to letters, will support Federal Government ICT – related policies by facilitating the availability and accessibility of ICT services across the country and to promote their usage across all sectors.
It consists of laboratories for ICT innovations and Commercial Hubs providing capacity building to ICT start-ups and entrepreneurial activities. The parks are designed to have fast internet service (broadband) and constant power supply.
Scope
Shedding more light on the ICT Park project, the CEO, NCC, Prof Garba Dambatta, said the NCC decided to embark on the important project “which will see ICT parks decentralised in all the six geo-political zones of the country.”
He spoke during his visit to one of the parks being built in Maiduguri, the Northeast geo-political zone.
He said the Commission is starting with four zones. These include the ones located in Abeokuta for the Southwest; Enugu for Southeast, Maiduguri for Northeast and Kano for the Northwest.
The projects, he said, were being implemented to build capacity, exposing the youths to capacity building initiatives in the areas of skills acquisition and innovation.
“The whole idea of putting these two things (skill acquisition and innovation) at the forefront of this very important initiative is to produce youths that can be self-reliant, that can generate employment for themselves and for other Nigerians.”
Danbatta said the project, which is consistent with global best practices, has targeted areas of in each of the zones with large concentration of youths.
He promised that, because of its design to have a national spread, the Commission would ensure that no part of the country is be left out of the initiative.
Expectations
On the expectations from the project, Dambatta said: “As I said, we have four ICT parks, which are at different stages of development. Going forward, we hope to see software development, incubation, including, even, hardware development. Above all, through NCC ICT Parks, we hope to see innovative technologies that will leverage the broadband network the NCC is trying to deploy to socially and economically transform our communities and societies.”
Eight-Point Agenda, digital economy
The project aligns with Item Four of the Eight-Point Agenda of NCC, which focuses on ICT Innovation and Investment Opportunities.
Dambatta said as NCC deepens broadband access beyond its 38 per cent to achieve the 70 per cent broadband penetration set for 2025 by the Federal Government, the Commission, through the ICT Park, will also help in building a pool of digital skills and literacy in line with the country’s National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS), unveiled by President Muhammadu Buhari last year.
The project, which is the baby of the NCC will go a long way in giving the needed fillip to the Federal Government’s NDEPS, which has eight pillars that include: Development Regulations, Digital Literacy, Skill Development, Solid Infrastructure, Service Infrastructure, Soft Infrastructure, Digital Societies and Emerging Technologies and Indigenous Development.
The project also agrees with pillars two, three and eight of the NDEPS, which talk about Digital Literacy, Skill Development and Indigenous ICT Development.
The NDEPS provides the direction on major activities that the ICT industry must embark upon towards consolidating on achievements already recorded in the industry and highlighting new areas that should be focused on in order for the country to achieve a truly digital economy for the country.
“As you may be aware, one of the eight pillars of the NDEPS is Digital Skills and Literacy and in this regard, NCC is supporting this critical pillar of the digital economy agenda. This is because, when we provide resilient broadband infrastructure platforms, there is a need for us to encourage local technology products and applications that will ride on the infrastructure toward developing the country’s overall socio-economic ecosystem in a sustainable way,” he said.
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