The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi has assured all participants of the Creative Kids online training programme of the agency’s support to further develop their IT skills.
Represented by Dr Usman Gambo Abdullahi, Director of IT Infrastructure Solutions, the NITDA DG stated this while addressing the participants during the graduation ceremony of the training programme at the weekend.
He said that what the children have learnt and accomplished in their training shows what they can achieve in the future, because technology is the future.
Mallam Abdullahi advised that there was a need for the children to keep improving on the skills they have learnt and harness such skills for the socio-economic development of the country.”
“We have to ensure that children learn, because, we cannot afford, as a country, to be left behind in technology. We have highly talented individuals in technology especially in the area of information technology.
“By showing sustained interest in this field, you are not only going to be improving yourself, you can be problem solvers, inventors, innovators, create job opportunities while contributing your quota in realizing a smarter Nigeria. The opportunities it offers are limitless.
“Look at the global impact of Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg as a result of their interest in technology. In Nigeria, we have Mitchell Elegbe, Sim Shagaya, Tayo Oviosu to mention a few doing phenomenal things with technology,” he added.
While congratulating the organisers of the training, the NITDA DG said, it is impressive what 3logy is doing in training kids to acquire and develop digital literacy skills especially in emerging technologies.
He added that the Nigeria government has made a strong policy commitment to making Nigeria a smart Nigeria by the year 2030, and one of the pillars to actualizing that is “digital literacy and skills.”
“As a nation, it is important that we have a young generation that is equipped with adequate digital skills that will enable them compete favourably in today’s digital age,” the DG said.
Earlier the moderator, Rahinat Muhammad noted that the children were full of so much potential and needed to have memorable experiences in technology so as to develop further in future.
Among the children participants were: Aliyu Bashir Gwandu, who won the most determined award, Amina and Abubakar Maida, who won the most punctual award and Labeeb Muhammad, who won the most well behaved award.
Some of the participants received awards of passes to more training by the organisers.
In the four-week long training, the children were introduced to robotics, the popular new Python programming for beginners and some other emerging information technologies.
