Youths numbering not less than 500 in Bauchi State have successfully graduated from the Global System for Mobile Communication, GSM phone repairs, hardware, software & entrepreneurship development training organized by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, NCDMB under its Youth Empowerment Programme.
According to NCDMB, the training is the fifth in the series, having conducted similar programme in Kano, Kaduna, Cross River and Yobe states and impacted about 2,900 youths.
The Executive Secretary of Board, Engr. Simbi Kesiye Wabote who spoke at the closing ceremony of the training held recently in Bauchi, the State capital explained that the Board conducted the training as part of its mandate and in line with President Muhammadu Buhai’s commitment to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty.
Engr. Wabote who was represented by the Board’s General Manager, Research, Statistics and Development, Alhaji Abdulmalik Halilu, said that the empowerment programme was aimed at providing lifelong support to youths that desired to be empowered in high impact economic sectors including oil and gas, Information and Communication Technology, Agriculture, construction and other areas.
According to him, “The decision to sponsor training of youths in GSM repairs is driven by the exponential proliferation of information and communication technology around the globe, which has led several countries to position their economies as leading digital economic hubs.”
He stressed that the NCDMB’s intervention in the ICT sector and structured collaboration with the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA is designed to maximize in-country value creation for the ICT sector in the areas of manpower training and design and development of local capabilities in infrastructure, software solutions and hardware devices.
The NCDMB boss disclosed that since the outset of the GSM revolution and the deregulation of the ICT sector in 2001, it has brought about rapid growth in teledensity from 1.89 percent to 104.41 percent in 2020, while its contribution to the national Gross Domestic Product, GDP increased from 0.5 percent to 15.05 percent in 2020.
Engr. Wabote therefore charged the beneficiaries of the training to consolidate on what they gained from the training and achieve high local content level from the acquisition of GSM phones.
He pointed out that there is a need to design a roadmap towards boosting local manufacturing of embedded systems and mobile phone technology in order to progress from assembly to the manufacturing of integrated circuitry, electronic components and mobile devices.
According to him, the GSM training provided the trainees with ample opportunity to harness the potentials in the ICT sector based on the unique End2End training delivery model.
He therefore charged the graduands to dream big by building on the NCDMB End2End model so as to contribute their quotas in the development of a national technology ecosystem that is innovative, productive and resilient.
By Sunday Elom N
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