Deputy governor, operations, of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Adebisi Shonubi and the managing director of Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System plc (NIBSS), Premier Oiwoh will lead discussions at the first pan African summit this week on the role of digitalisation in transforming the economy.
The summit which holds on March 25 in Lagos is expected to advance the cause of digital transformation and pull stakeholders to brainstorm, network, and collaborate for a better economy. It is organised by CIO Club Africa and Edniesal Consulting Limited and it is regarded as the first of its kind in the information technology space in Nigeria and by extension, the Central West Africa countries
The summit will have chief information, technical, digital and information security officers, managing directors, country managers and CEOs of various organisations and high-profile government personnel across Africa as participants. The summit is coming at a time other nations are deploying digital processes for economic advancement.
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Elaborating on the objective of the summit to BusinessDay, Oluwakayode Adigun, chairman of Edniesal Consulting Limited said transformation is key at this time for Nigeria and Africa as a continent.
“For us to make a mark on the world economic map, the only thing we can do is to transform speedily and rapidly for efficiency and the only way to achieve that is through digitalisation. We cannot continue to do things with analogue and expect to catch up with the rest of the world”.
According to him, it is based on the need to speedily transform Nigeria and Africa’s economy through digitalisation as it is being done in other climes that informed the summit where digital players including manufacturers of systems, providers of services, end-users and government officials will attempt to look for a solution on how to move the economy forward through digitalisation.
“Today, policies pursue digitalisation and technology. What we want to do is for government to understand how to pursue it properly so that the formulators, regulators and implementers are on the same page on how to do a better job”
Also speaking on the summit, Abiola Laseinde, the convener of the CIO Club Africa believed that “if the equipment manufacturers that have lived the test of time and are contributing enormously in the countries where they are, because of the people behind the multinationals, why can’t we bring the people, the heads of IT, technology, chief digital officers across all these industries together and talk about how we build our nation”.
Other discussions at the summit will centre on how to harness the potentials of the youth, data protection, cyber security and how policies should open the economy. Abiola Laseinde said the summit is supporting opportunities and helping the government close gaps.
