The Lagos State Government (LASG), in collaboration with Oracle Corporation at the weekend, flagged off three IT Human Capacity talent building programmes expected to further promote the state’s objectives to deliver more effective services to the citizens.

Delivering his keynote address at the workshop, Commissioner for Science and Technology, Mr Adebiyi Mabadeje said that the three Human Capacity building programmes of Employee Readiness, Youth Readiness, as well as Workforce Development are the areas in which the state government will collaborate with Oracle to enrich and equip existing talents among government employees with Oracle skills to support strategic IT projects.

He said that the collaboration would also help in leveraging on the expertise of Oracle’s Public Sector Centre of Excellence to run workshops for top Information officers of MDAs on best practices, market trends and business solutions on topics such as improving service delivery to the citizens using social media.

Another area he expected the partnership to help the state government was on training graduates under the workforce development programme on Oracle Database or Oracle e-Business suite for the acquisition of industry-relevant skills and opportunities for internships within some of the state’s ministries.

He added that the partners were poised to introduce industry-relevant computer science and Oracle courseware into the curricula of universities and public high schools in the state as well as to make the Lagos e-Learning Centre an Oracle University authorized training partner.

Reacting, the Country Managing Director of Oracle Nigeria, Mr Adebayo Sanni, said that these Programmes assist in tackling the challenges of human capacity and effectively boost economic development in a fast growing economy like Nigeria.

He added that Oracle’s goal was getting the youths interested in Computer Science, driving change in ICT syllabi, thereby helping the governments at all levels to future-proof their economies for growth and job creation.

Earlier, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Science and Technology, Mrs. Nike Animashaun, had noted that the collaboration with Oracle was in line with the continuous capacity building programme of Governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), to revolutionise how public servants interact and render services to the citizens.