An NGO, the Hi-Tech Centre for Women and Youths, on Friday urged enterpreneurs to learn how to use Information Communication Technology (ICT) to do business.
The centre’s President, Dr Wummi Hassan, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that learning the use of ICT for business would enable Nigerians become producers, not just users.
According to her, for the country to diversify its economy, there is a need to build local content knowledge to develop the country so that importation can be reduced to the barest minimum.
Hassan urged Nigerians to change their attitudes and concentrate on developing research and acquiring new skills.
“Let us embrace local content knowledge because the things we are importing into the country are as a result of those countries’ developed research and skills.
“As we cannot think of diversification without building knowledge, so people need to build a lot of knowledge in the area of skills acquisition.
“This will help them do things differently from how they have been doing it and they will have multiple sources of income.
“Children are not left out of this as they can also learn skills in the areas of pastry, bead making and a host of other things,’’ she said.
The Hi-Tech president said that to encourage local content knowledge, the centre was training children and youths in its Summer Academy on diverse use of ICT.
She said that the participants would be engaged in indigenous designs related to hardware, software and other relevant skills for solving immediate national challenges.
Hassan said that they would also be trained on how to commercialise their invented products and services, and be empowered with ICT tools for entrepreneurship development.
“The 2017 Summer Academy Camp which commences in Lagos for the South-West on July 30 is a yearly event and will also be held in other geo-political zones.
“For the North-Central it will hold in Abuja, Kaduna for North-West, Akwa-Ibom for the South-South and Taraba for the North-East.
“The camp for us in Hi-Tech is a time to gather children in primary and secondary schools to be trained in graphics, robotics and coding.
“We are training them in things that can build their intellectual capability to be creative through innovations so they can start to develop solutions that can be applied to several areas.”
Hassan said that if children could build their intellectual capability early, it would go a long way in the nation’s quest to have a society where knowledge economy would play a major role.