Nigerian tech news company TechCabal held its flagship event for this year Moonshot by TechCabal. The event was put together for members of the ecosystem, investors and tech enthusiasts who could cough out N15,000 for a chance to see the new minister of communications, innovation, and digital economy, Bosun Tijani, Juliet Ehimuan of Google West Africa fame, and Startup Act scribe, Oswald Osaretin Guobadia, who is also managing partner at DigitA chat about the future of tech in Nigeria.
Other panellists included Moniepoint CEO, Tosin Eniolorunda on Zoom, YouTuber Korty, Flutterwave CEO, Olugbenga Agboola, Lagos State’s Commissioner of Science and Technology, Olatubosun Alake, Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, who kept his job atop the agency under the new Bola Tinubu administration.
What was said at Moonshot
The minister, Bosun Tijani, presented his credentials as a member of the ecosystem who was now in government to implement favourable policies and attack the pain points of the ecosystem’s members.
At the event, he disclosed his plans to train 3 million tech talents in four years, which he said he would achieve through a 1-10-100 model.
“When we say we want to train 3 million people, we are talking about individuals, lives. These are not just random numbers. The fact is that if you get 10% of that right, you’ll change Nigeria significantly. If you have like 100 thousand or even 10 thousand software engineers in Nigeria, it’s a significant change,” the minister said at Moonshot.
“We are using a 1-10-100-model. We are starting with 1% of our 3 million target and that will be for the first three months. And that 1% is going to be 30,000 people. So starting this Friday, you will see applications being released for both trainers and those who want to be fellows,” he added.
He also spoke about his plans to position Nigeria as a top destination for AI technology.
“We recognise that one of the biggest challenges in artificial intelligence is inclusion. AI is [currently] very Western-centric. We are going to work to make the data about Nigeria connected with our realities,” Tijani said.
“It’s the same model that we are using for research where we are projecting that Nigeria in the next four years be among the 25 percentile when it comes to artificial intelligence. Again people will argue, but we’ve done a few checks on that.”
He also announced plans to launch a new project with NITDA “that is going to be funding our first forty startups/academia research projects that are focused on application.”
A path forward
Juliet Ehimuan spoke about the path forward for the ecosystem and how the region can build sustainable digital economies.
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“When we think about building the digital economy, actually it’s a bit difficult to single out a particular area because there are many things that need to be front and centre for us to have a wider digital economy,” she said at Moonshot.
According to her “Access,” “Locally Relevant Content,” “Capacity” and “Funding” are a huge part of it. “If you think about the digital economy as a marketplace, then you need to have access. Making sure we have tools and use cases, platforms, and solutions that address the various gaps in the market; Making sure we have developers to build the solutions and applications; Funding for our entrepreneurs,” she said is the path forward.
Oswald Osaretin Guobadia called for even better collaboration between the government and the stakeholders in tech.
“We need policy and the legislative to drive innovation. When you start looking at government and the way government is (and this is what we think) government is somewhat siloed and so to create that cross-participation across government, we need legislature. We need policies that are able to drive innovation,” he said at Moonshot.
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