NITDA, Coursera partnership seen driving Nigeria’s digital growth

Stakeholders in Nigeria’s digital ecosystem say the National Information Technology Development Agency’s (NITDA) partnership with business-to-business (B2B), e-commerce companies, will contribute to the country’s digital economy growth.

This call is coming on the back of NITDA’s recent partnership with Coursera, a global online learning platform to facilitate the country’s transformation into a digital economy. Under the partnership, Coursera is expected to provide NITDA’s selected learners with access to world-class educational content from top universities and industry leaders, including Yale, Meta, Google, and IBM.

Accordingly, Coursera will support the Nigerian government in improving the technical capabilities of the country’s public sector, making it Coursera’s first collaboration with the government in Nigeria. “Nigeria’s economic success is being driven by the success of its telecommunications sector, which achieved its highest-ever contribution to national GDP in the second quarter of 2022,” Anthony Tattersall, vice president for EMEA, Coursera, said.

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According to him, working with NITDA will enable Coursera to equip Nigerians with the skills necessary to continue driving further growth in the ICT sector, which in turn will help to drive a diversified, competitive, skilled economy.

Kashifu Inuwa, director-general of NITDA, said that there was a shortage of talents globally. However, the NITDA is leveraging Nigeria’s competitive advantage as a country with vast human and natural resources towards creating a mandate to strategically develop local talents.

“By partnering with Coursera to upskill our workforce, Nigeria can seize the opportunity to fill that gap,” Inuwa said.

Adewale Opaleye, the group CEO of Alerzo, said that technology firms, especially business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce companies are complimenting NITDA’s effort through their investment on digital training for micro businesses in their network across 15 cities in Nigeria.