Techies from Akwa Ibom State have said that they were in a pole position to create 10,000 jobs for youths with digital skills within the next four years.
They said the jobs in the tech ecosystem would enable them earn as high as N500,000 monthly.
Hanson Johnson, president of Ibom Technology Network, disclosed this on the sidelines of the Akwa Ibom Tech Week 2023 held at Four Points by Sheraton Hotel, Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State.
Akwa Ibom Tech Week 2023 drew participants from the tech landscape a mission to ‘foster innovation while driving the technology ecosystem in Akwa Ibom State, to create employments for skilled youths as well as offer opportunities for skill training and empowerment.’
According to Johnson, opportunities abound for Nigerians to work in many parts of the world while living in the country but there is a huge gap in skills set needed in the tech industry.
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“Opportunities are there in the tech industry, anyone who becomes employable would have a ready job. The achieve this, partnership with industry leaders, academic world, private sector is necessary.
“We are in partnership with: International Center for Environmental Sustainability and Energy Research, in the University of Uyo and TETFUND, Center for Computational Intelligence, to make sure that the innovations are backed with research and data to give investors confidence.
“We are trying to get 10,000 people work from here. Not all of them should work for companies outside, there should be companies here too. When we create these innovations, we should be able to also help indigenous people to work from here.
“Out of this event, we have established partnerships. We have people that are interested already in working with us. We have people that came in to see how far and they are convinced,” Johnson explained.
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He disclosed that a total of 13 technology hubs participated in the Akwa Ibom Tech Week 2023, with 109 members of the Tech community participating in the event, saying that within the first two days of the tech expo, over 1000 people have already been connected to related jobs around the globe.
“The event is a platform for visibility, opportunities and network for those who are skillful and ready. We only recommend quality talents to keep the Tech on,'” he explained.
Johnson however, disclosed plans by Ibom Tech Network, to partner with linguistics to come up with registers, codes and coin words, make sure they are approved and licensed, to use as communication codes in vernacular to interpret Technological terms.
“A group of language experts, software developers, within the communication network community have come together, to start work on Ibom Tech Language project. We are taking advantage of the event to launch the initiative.
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“Number two, African talents don’t have evaluation framework with the world Ibom Innovation Network is championing an initiative to come up with African Tech Talent Evaluation Framework. To initiate a structure in a framework that would enable revenue sharing.
“This is a situation where people are trained for free but partners are contacted to pay for such training. The framework would ensure that those that were so trained would have their money splitted when eventually employed to pay back for their training, with such system, partners would be more comfortable to train talents in Tech.
“We have also come up with Akwa Ibom Angels Network, within Akwa Ibom, there are already investors who are investing outside. Ibom Angels Network are those sourcing for local and international funding for Ibom Tech Network initiative.”
