The Federal Government says it will partner Academia in Information Technology Profession (AITP), and other stakeholders for Nigeria to play active roles in the 4th Industrial Revolution era.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, stated this in a zoom webinar during the International Conference on Information Technology in Education 2020 organised by the AITP on Tuesday.
The 3-day conference is tagged: “Fostering IT Eco-system for Effective Realisation of the 4th Industrial Revolution”.
The Minister, who was represented by Mr Kilyobas Binga, the Director, Radio Monitoring & Survey, said that part of the preparation for the revolution was the government’s initiative to rename the Ministry to deepen ICT and spur Nigerians to take a leading role.
Pantami explained that 4th industrial revolution was a fusion of Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, Internet of Things (IoT), Quantum and Cloud computing, Big data, Intelligent Transport System and several other technologies.
“We need to develop appropriate strategies to enable us to play an active and key role in the 4th Industrial Revolution era and develop the capacity of the people that would work in the new environment,” he said.
He urged the participants and organisers of the conference to participate actively and avail the Ministry of the communiqué of the conference as it was willing to partner stakeholders including AITP.
The Chairman of the occasion, Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila, the Speaker of the House of the Representative, said that the conference was very important especially at this period of the present administration’s efforts to diversify the economy through the use of ICT.
“We cannot be left behind as a nation and we need to take Information Technology to the rudimentary level and impart the culture of ICT at a tender age to our children.
“We need to build more schools with dedicated ICT facilities and make IT compulsory in the school system,” he said.
Earlier, the President of AITP, Prof. Afolayan Obiniyi, explained that the organisation was an interest group of the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), which was aimed at promoting quality research in education.
Obiniyi said that it would also have higher impact in computer science, information technology and relevant fields.
“It is pertinent for the academia to be at the forefront of the 4th Industrial Revolution since we missed the first to third industrial revolution as a country.
“There is the need for them to take up some of the local materials in their research and domicile it in the country using the principle of the 4th industrial revolution.
“It is time to challenge ourselves to critical thinking and stir up our students to develop pragmatic minds that will bring development to this nation.
“There cannot be a good research day without a digital repository. Digital Repository is very vital to academic research and development in the 4th Industrial Revolution,” he said.(NAN)
