Abuja-based software engineer, Felix Kalu, has asserted that the only way the country can achieve unprecedented growth and development in all sector, is to completely leverage on the opportunities provided by digital driven innovations and solutions.
Kalu stated this after receiving award for “Generation of Societal Change Award” for his achievements in impacting knowledge to young Nigerians on digital skills.
The software expert who has received several other awards in the last two years, said it is high time Nigeria totally embraced the technological innovation that has been on the rise in Africa, and especially in Nigeria in the last decade.
He explained that he has had cause to probe several proposals made to the ministry of Education in time past and discovered that even meetings of such inclination ended with no actions on the part of those interfaced with.
Engr Kalu who has moved on to develop and deploy other softwares for MDAs like the Niger Delta amnesty office and other private and public organizations, explained that a lot of young Nigerians have attempted the digitalization of education in Nigeria and are going the same path on focusing on more productive tech ventures as well as contributing to the education system in individual capacities.
He said: “Tech innovation has been on the rise in Africa, and especially in Nigeria in the last decade. There has been a subtle digital revolution that has taken over the internet space, with the way our lives and activities in recent time majorly rely on digital driven innovations and solutions.
“Online market places like Jumia, Konga, Jiji, OLX and loads of others are leading and evolving in the e-commerce business of buying and selling with annual sales turnovers running into billions of Naira yearly.
“Local merchants and retailers are getting better exposure for their products and services across these platforms, with a 24hrs open trading window, where you can buy and sell just with your mobile phones and computers.
“In the fintech sector, Nigerian entrepreneurs are in the leading space in Africa, with many of them attracting investments running to hundreds of millions of dollars.
“All of these point to the fact that Africa and indeed Nigeria is catching up with the global world in terms of technology and digital advancement.
Speaking further, he hinted the eventhough the tech space was growing, it was a different ball game with the digital tech space in the educational sector.
He maintained that the digital space stories was not exactly the same for education, as it has been a slow drag to catch up on the part of educational institutions.
Kalu who was responsible for the setup of the mobile school software on student tablets for the American University Academy, Yola in 2016, noted that one of his major challenges in driving the initiative in schools has been convincing them to make tech innovations in education as part of their mainstay program delivery channel
“In the last four years it’s been difficult convincing the schools to make this a mainstay in their system as they struggle with blending the curriculum of what we have on our platform with what is attainable in the national curriculum they run, this has caused some lapses and cries for an overhaul of our curriculum. However, this has led us to focus on developing more Nigerian curriculum focused resources to bridge this gap, and we’ve made some progress since then,” he stated.