By Edwin Philip
Nigeria can achieve a 1 trillion dollars economy targets before 2030 with the use of artificial intelligence (Ai) as well as harness over 50 billion dollars in revenue with remote jobs for its teeming youths if over 1.5 million youths are trained to use technology.
This assertion was made the Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency – NITDA, Hon. Kashifu Inuwa, while delivering his key notes address at 3rd annual economic Confidential Lecture and PR Nigeria book presentation with the theme “Agenda for a Digital Global Economy,” which took place at the Nicon Luxury Hotels, Abuja.
He noted that the benefit of the first industrial revolution of the 1760 – 1840s, based on agriculture, which the second been from 1870 – 1914, was the era of industrial revolution, the 3rd floor 1960 – 2000, the advent computers, till date, now the third industrial revolutions.
According to NITDA DG, digital technology permeates across all critical sector of human endeavours: ” Because today you can’t talk about finance without it, If you remove it from finance, the growth will die, you can’t remove it from even journalism today, because digital economy is about using technology to empower the people” he said.
Adding that digital technology is a tool that can power Nigeria economy and drives national prosperity in the areas of agriculture, health care, education, finance amongst others.
“I imagine a young lady in Kaduna, a farmer who always make a guess on when to plant, when to put fertilizer, when to do her farm activities, because rain can come and drain whatever she does without clear information, so imagine her using a smart phone with AI powered app that can give her information about whether, when to plant, what type of fertilizer to use when to apply fertilizer and so on”.
Adding that this alone can help farmers have better productivity, as well as help anybody who will embrace technology, with the overall benefit of driving national prosperity and inclusivity.
Speaking in his welcome remarks, Editor – In-Chief, Economic Confidential , Mr Yushua A. Shuaib, said the lecture is to foster knowledge networking and collaboration, as well as having an idea about what’s going on in the economy.
“After this lecture, we are also making presentation of three wonderful books. And this book, actually has to do with the kind of rapport, relationship, collaboration and support as well as patronage we receive from not only our client, but also our partners, so we are having three books, and surprisingly, the one in the middle my young Nigerian, there are four Corps members serving in Nigeria” he said.
According to him, the publishers have also published different articles on different platforms, as well as syndicated publishing on other national platforms.
” We believe most strongly about PR. PR has different sector, price communication, event management, lobing and so on and so forth, under event management that you have, you can see some of the event. We are having security and emergency management award this year. We are going to have the eighth edition, and we have aliwasta Award, which is going to be fourth edition in Kano, also we have national spokesperson award, we partner NIPR, that’s why I’m glad the NIPR chairman is here” he added.
Participants at the event, agreed that technology is reshaping governance, trade, education, health, care and every aspect of human endeavour, as a nation, failure to o embrace the digital revolution, is the risk of being left behind, individuals as well should should not only consume technology but as creators, innovators and exporters of digital solutions.
The 3rd economic Confidential Lecture featured the presentation of 3 books to the public, which are: Renewed Hope In Central Banking autored Rahman Oladosu, Healing Nigeria, a chronicle of health reforms, Lawal Mamman and Maimuma Aliyu, and Diplomacy and digital innovation: Youth insights, Fatima Usman and Umar Bala, with awards special recognition to the DG NITDA, the NIPR chairman amongst others.