The Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi on Thursday, 13th February 2020 inaugurated ‘Steam Boys, Tech Men Initiative’ organized by the High Tech Centre for Women and Youth.
Inuwa was the special guest of honour at the launching and inauguration of the initiative with the theme “Muscles with brains for technology innovation” in Abuja on Thursday. “Digital technologies are disrupting the way we live”, the DG said, as he gave his opening remarks at the event which was well attended by mostly students from secondary schools.
He pointed out that the internet has changed the way we live, access information and interact with one another and urged the students to meaningfully utilize their access to computers in other to proffer solutions to challenges or improve on existing ones.
Furthermore, Mr Abdullahi assured participants that the Agency is doing all in its power to create a favourable eco-system for the IT industry of which it has identified key stakeholders which include, Government, education sector, corporate organizations, and empowering start-ups through venture capitals.
The convener of the event, President/CEO, High Tech Centre for Women and Youth, Dr Wunmi Hassan informed the participants that the goal of Nigeria STEM summit and Train-the-Trainers workshop taking place on the 24th-26th of March 2020 is to produce a mobile phone that will be branded ‘made in Nigeria’ for the very first time.
She confirmed that the need for the STEAM boys/Tech men initiative is to incorporate boys/men into the vision of the organisation, stating that STEM has been hosting just females in the last two years but for 2020 the summit will comprise of both genders. “The urge to diversify took us from not just learning information technology but producing technology”, said Dr Hassan.
