Nigerian start-ups have received commendations from the Gambian Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, His Excellency, Ousman A. Bah, for their innovative efforts.
The commendation came pouring in from the Gambian Minister after being led on a tour of the National Centre for Artificial intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR), a special purpose vehicle of NITDA, the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa CCIE and the National Director of the NCAIR, Engr Ya’u Garba.
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The Gambian Minister of Communications and Digital Economy had come to Nigeria to attend the maiden edition of the “Digital Nigeria Conference and Exhibition” at different times and was pleasantly surprised at the quality equipment and innovations of startups in the facility.
His Excellency, Ousman A. Bah, described the Nigerian Startup tech ecosystem as progressive and very impressive.
He said, “For the last four days I have been in Nigeria, I have been impressed, I have lived in the United States of America for 32 years, I have done a lot of tech stuff, manage a lot of tech people in my life but what I have seen here is phenomenal; the commitment, the drive, and the innovativeness of young Nigerians is unspeakable”.
He also affirmed that members of his team have learned a lot from the experiences and knowledge gathered, especially from the digital skills workforce of the country, the Minister noted that they hope to replicate the ideas to boost The Gambia’s digital economy.
“Going back to The Gambia, we have a lot to take from here and put it into practice as well as starting our digital transformation in The Gambia”
“Nonetheless, continue to do what you are doing; as your Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami) said, the reward for good work is more work, so you guys have a lot of work to do and we have a lot to learn from you and I appreciate this”, Bah maintained.
However, he did not fail to challenge African leaders to technologically change the story of the continent for good to also take pride in solving the vast amount of problems facing humanity.
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“I think we Africans and as leaders, we need to encourage, empower and motivate ourselves towards taking the front seat in critical areas of the world’s economy, we can do it if we make it a collective effort. If they can do it in the West we can do it here”, he averred.
He assured the Nigerian team that plans are ongoing to have the two countries start engaging in mutually beneficial collaborations, particularly in the digital economy sector to encourage technology transfer and support each other to reap the benefits of emerging technologies and grow the digital markets.
“I suggested that we collaborate, hopefully, sign an MoU and engage others in areas we can mutually benefit. I think that Will be the next step”, Bah assured.
The Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa, expressing delight at the Gambian Minister’s appraisal of Nigeria’s digital transformation enumerated other plans/initiatives of the agency under the supervision of the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.
He assured the Minister of Nigeria’s support towards growing the African continent in becoming the destination of choice for digital markets.
The NITDA Boss hoped that the global talent gap would be bridged with Nigerian talented startups rising to the challenge.
“The Start-up Bill which was recently signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari would address the bottlenecks stifling the growth of the tech ecosystem”, Inuwa confirmed.