By Emeka Aginam

Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson has said that for Nigeria to be a software capable country in the knowledge economy, more start-ups were needed in software coding, and assured that her ministry will intervene in software coding academy through necessary support.

Although the number of start-ups in software coding will increase with time, the Minister, said that all hands must be on deck if the country must achieve a robust and vibrant software industry.

Lamenting that billions of naira leaves the country every year as license and other fees to foreign software companies, Mrs Johnson said that Nigeria has enough capacity to build software code warriors for global competitiveness, urging over 100 students from tertiary institutions participating in the software contest to use software for job creation.

At the event which attracted a capacity audience including university vice-chancellors and the United Nation official, the minister said: “We need to tackle the broader challenge of how we take our promising software developers and software engineers and help them to become entrepreneurs that can take advantage of opportunities,” she said.

Communications & Tech Minister, Omobola Johnson

Be more innovative

She charged local software engineers to be more innovative and original, saying “this year’s theme is a good one as it not only speaks of the importance of software as a tool to improve productivity in the workforce, be it public or private sector but also alludes to the to the role that software plays, dare I say in the transformation of economies.

“Software has indeed accelerated productivity in the workplace , for example the simple word processing tools and spreadsheet tools that we had in the 80’s to the more encompassing office productivity tools such as the Microsoft Office suite” she said.

An assessment of Nigeria’s software industry landscape, according to her revealed that the country needed to focus on innovation among others to tackle this challenges.

‘We have to keep sight of the fact that brilliantly written lines of code must still be considered as building blocks for the successful software companies that must be our ultimate target in building a viable software industry”, she explained.

Governor of Cross River State, Senator Lyel Imoke told the gathering that future survivability of the country lies in the students start-ups that have participated in the software competition.

Represented by his Special Assistant on ICT , Odo Effiong, the governor told the students to use software solutions developed for the contest to solve problems in their local communities, saying that his government is promoting the 2013 national software competition with N7.5 million.

However, 70 percent of the fund, it was learnt will go to the winners while the remaining 30 percent will be kept as seed fund for mentoring and innovation.

Accordingly, N2 million will go to the first prize winners, N1.5 million to the second winners while N1 million will go to the third winners.

For Professor Tapio Varis from the United Nation in his key note speech, recent trends in ICT s put emphasis on the innovation strategy for education and training, which according to him must be embraced by Nigeria for future survivability.

While urging the Nigerian government to benefit from the UNESCO/IITE e-learning programme, he said that there may be need for national policy on e-learning and establishment of a pilot project for a UN e-learning center for ECOWAS in TINAPA. Part of his recommendation was that Nigeria should ensure that education environment is integrated with knowledge laboratories and techno-enabled lectures.

With a youth population of about 60 per cent, he further recommended that Nigeria should build the capacity and capability to demystifying technology innovation

Need for smart training

Similarly, Professor Pat Utomi during the plenary session told the gathering that there was need to have smart training for the smart society.

While admitting that entrepreneurship was creating value, he told the student to be innovative in software development so as to face the challenges of the global labor market after graduation.

“How do we deal with curriculum in the universities to drive entrepreneurship? Digital literacy is the key. Nigeria must recognize the division between vocational and academic training as an intervention strategy in the digital economy,”he said.

President of ISPON, Chris Uwaje earlier in his welcome address while admitting that telecoms are significant and very important noted that the current application strategy may not rescue Nigeria from emerging digital knowledge colonization in the near future.

Convinced by the fact that of the country’s inability to compete in the heavy technology industry, in the next thirty years, he said that conventional wisdom dictates that the country’s 90% telecom centric focus against 10% creative technology and IT/software innovation may result into development jeopardy in the mainstream of Information society.

Technology equilibrium needed

He noted that what the country needs is technology equilibrium innovative strategy where equivalent resources is strategically deployed simultaneously to stimulate innovation in both critical sectors and observe their GDP value added to the nation building development.

While advising the students to become software entrepreneurs for global competitiveness, he said that, “If the goals of retooling the workforce is to facilitate wealth creation, enhance our competitive edge in the global knowledge Olympiad and ensure as well as sustain national survivability, then we who are gathered here today in Tinapa Knowledge city are duty bound to discover the lasting solutions.”

Of 24 teams that competed in the first round, ten were shortlisted in the second round after which three teams emerged 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the final round of the competition that saw Olaoluwa Aboluwarin, Oluwadara Oladapo and Mofesola Banjo as the first prize winner with Enchanter as the project name in the 2013 ISPON software competition grand price.

The three students were selected after four days of creative work in a keenly contested software competition involving about 70 students from 21 schools from Nigerian tertiary institutions at the Nigerian knowledge city, Tinapa, Calabar, Cross River state.

Team 1 from Covenant University, Otta with Anti-cultism social education media won the second prize with Ativie Raymond, Orogo Alanunioluwa as team members.

Also, Team Efficacy from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife came third with team members including Moyin Adeyemi, Adegoke Obasa and Adeyemi Olaoye .

However, 24 teams in different categories including mobile app, web app, desktop app, and mobile game had competed in national software completion and conference sponsored by Main One, Nigerian Communications Commission, NEXIM Bank, NITDA among others.