DG NITDA Reaffirms Commitment To Youth Empowerment In Digital Economy

With the global surge in unemployment and inflation causing serious concern among world leaders, the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, has emphasized the importance of empowering youths by creating an enabling environment to nurture and escalate their potentials for the country’s digital economy.

Inuwa made this declaration while giving a Keynote Address on “Problems, Possibilities, and Potentials of Nigerian Youths” at the Youth Entrepreneurship Dialogue (YED) Global Entrepreneurship Week, 2022, organized by Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN).

As a youth himself, the NITDA CEO expressed his excitement at delivering the address and praised Nigerian youths for their consistent drive and enthusiasm toward the deployment of technological innovations in their various entrepreneurship ventures for the advancement and development of the Nigerian economy.

“The fact that Nigerian entrepreneurs, mainly the youths, kept delivering on innovation and promoting inclusion, leading to positive socio-economic impact and economic growth, is an indication of Nigeria’s entrepreneurship dexterity. Indeed, entrepreneurs are and will remain the backbone of the Nigerian economy”, he noted.

 

While expressing empathy for the ecosystem’s challenges, Inuwagave assures of the Federal Government’s complete support and commitment to the massive entrepreneurial strides made by Nigerian youths through the provision of infrastructures, policies, and initiatives that will create an enabling environment.

He stated that the Agency developed its Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan (SRAP) with various initiatives deployed in collaboration with stakeholders to align the country with the best global practices, revealing NITDA’s commitment to promoting entrepreneurship and Innovation Driven Enterprises (IDEs) in the country.

“NITDA has always been committed to driving youth entrepreneurship and we have continued to train and equip young innovative Nigerians aspiring to realize their entrepreneurial dreams through strategic programs”, he noted.

Highlighting some of these initiatives, the DG said that the Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Support (TIES) scheme, the Idea Hatch (iHatch) incubation programme in partnership with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and the Bridge to Mass Challenge (B2MC) are few of the several initiatives adopted and deployed by the agency in supporting entrepreneurship and creation of more IDEs.

Speaking on the Federal Government’s support for the promotion of entrepreneurship and the creation of more IDEs in the country, Inuwa added that “NITDA in collaboration with the Office of the Vice President for the actualization of the newly signed Nigeria Startup Bill (NSB) into law by President Muhammad Buhari GCFR, which has now become the Nigeria Startup Act (NSA)”.

Inuwa described the NSA as one of the current government administration’s landmark achievements and urged youths in the country to take full use of the effort, noting that the Act will provide them with infinite possibilities to reap the benefits it provides.

According to the DG, the country’s youths are the most crucial aspects in the evolutionary process since they are the drivers of change with a substantial impact on the country’s economic, social, political, and cultural development as well as globally.

“The youths, their talents, potentials, skills, and capacities should be healthily and sufficiently channeled to the growth of the society. As a nation blessed with young and talented youths, Nigeria can attain economic independence, economic sustainability, and economic invulnerability, through enterprising our developed talents and potentials”, he concluded.