As Nigeria joined the rest of the world to mark this year Innovation and Creativity Day, the honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami has revealed what the future holds for country in the area of digital creativity and innovation.
The Minister disclosed that, “It is indeed really encouraging that in Nigeria our future in digital creativity and innovation is very bright. There is no doubt about this. If you look at the ideas that are coming up from the discussion. Our young innovators that pitch today the quality of the presentation before originality of the presentation and many more. It is indeed very clear that our future in digital innovation is very bright.”
Pantami noted this in his remarks as special guest of honour during the activities lined up to mark the day which was coincident with the Week the National Information Technology Development Agency ( NITDA) was established.
He recounted that many Nigerians start- ups are blazing the trails at the global level from the innovations they are coming up with which he described as encouraging. He added that the country would always provide the necessary enablement and support for the start-ups in in digital innovation ecosystem.
Read Also: Beyond growth plan, organisations need technology resilience to survive –Olajide
He said, “it is gratifying to hear that a Nigerian start- up invented an application that was sold to Apple Incorporation for 1 billion USD and also in 2019, another Nigerian emerged first in Artificial Intelligence category at the Gulf Information Technology Exhibition in Dubai, United Arab Emirate with cash price of 10, 000USD.
While acknowledging various innovations the competition received for the event, the minister stated that the he was impressive with the solutions they have come up and the way and manner they pitched the problems they could solve adding that right mentorship and supports would be given to them.
“I have been informed officially that eight hundred participants participated in this challenge, out of them, the best five had been chosen and they are going to be awarded today, each and every one of them is going to be given two million Naira by the federal government of Nigeria through the National Information Technology Development Agency. So five of them collectively they are going to receive ten million naira in addition to a letter of commendation to be signed by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.“
