By Bankole Olubamise
ICT and the New Economy  Rapid technological progress in ICT and its speedy proliferation among developed countries have led to speculation that the widespread adoption of ICT will lead to a ‘frictionless’ economy, i.e., one in which transaction costs gradually approach zero, barriers to entry disappear, markets respond instantaneously and productivity increases substantially. In such an economy, there would be stable economic growth and low inflation, or the so-called ‘New Economy.

While the impacts of ICT on economy-wide productivity is far from conclusive, there are preliminary results that show that the rate of return of ICT capital is higher than 50 percent. This figure overwhelms that of ordinary capital, which is approximately 30 percent. It must be noted, however, that ICT capital has a higher depreciation rate than does ordinary capital (Murakami 1998). There are also numerous case studies confirming that the use of ICT contributed significantly to higher productivity levels among firms. For example, it was shown that ICT helps to reduce production costs, speed up product life cycles, reduce inventories, marketing, and distribution costs, and provides better after-sales service to consumers at lower costs.

Gender, Women and Technology
Technologies, including ICTs, are not gender-neutral, rather, the use of ICTs and other technologies by women and men reflects to a large extent the wider socio-cultural and economic context within which the technologies are produced and used. Around the world women’s enrolment in science is low and as such impedes the ability of women to take their place in the IT world.

In developing countries, there is a great deal of variation in the percentages of women in natural sciences, computer science, and engineers. There are indications that young women in developing countries are not as affected as U.S. women by attitudes that computer science is not an attractive field to enter. For example, women comprise between 30 and 50 percent of students in computer science and other natural sciences in a number of developing countries. Africa remains the area of greatest concern, however, as African women have the lowest participation rates in the world in science and technology education at all levels.

Women are hardly seen at decision or policy making levels and are definitely not movers and shakers within the industry. This may be as a result of unequal access to education, lack of financial resources and other key obstacles to being more involved in and with technology. It is widely believed that women have relatively little influence on the decision making processes in the ICT arena and that they are underrepresented in all the sectors that influence the arena.

The Role of Human Resource in achieving National ICT4D Plan
The key resource for developing the information and knowledge economy in any nation is human resource…
The Federal Government of Nigeria realizing that the 21st century being a knowledge age and driven by knowledge economy built on innovations and deployment of ICTs is committed to transforming the Nigerian economy into a globally competitive economy by investing in human resource development.

It acknowledges that: the extent to which she will benefit from the advances and the opportunities of the emerging information age will depend on how she is capable of developing and harnessing its human resources to initiate, support and maintain its socio-economic development towards an information and knowledge economy.

Vision: To develop globally competitive human capital.Key Objectives:
i.     To build a critical mass of ICT professionals and ICT knowledgeable workforce that can effectively drive national development objectives, whilst being globally competitive.

ii. To empower Nigerians to participate in IT and Software Development.iii. To guarantee that the country benefits maximally and contributes meaningfully by providing global solutions to the challenges of the information age.

iv. To ensure that information telecommunications resources are available to promote efficient national development.
v. To encourage local production and manufacture of ICT components in a competitive manner.
Key Goals/Deliverables:

i.     Establish IT Parks as incubating centers for development of software applications at national, state and local government level.
ii. Restructuring the educational system at all levels to respond positively to the challenges and imagined impact of the information age.

iii. Establishment and allocation of special ICT Fund to education at all levels.iv. Encouraging massive local and global ICT skills acquisition through training in the public and private sectors with a view to achieving a strategic medium term milestone of at least 500,000 ICT skilled personnel by the year 2008.
v. Empowering the labour force with IT skills.

vi. Creating a pool of highly trained professionals that drive the next generation of ICT development through research and development efforts in the private and public sectors.