NITDA Harps on Women’s Role in Digital Economy Pursuit

Nosa Alekhuogie

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has stressed the crucial roles of women participating in the digital economy pursuit being championed by the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.

The Head of Servicom Unit at NITDA, Mrs. Tariundu Ndoni, who represented the Director General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi at the Nigerian Women Entrepreneurship and Executives In Tech Summit (WEETS) in Lagos recently, noted that with women’s participation in ICT below 24 percent, it has become essential to empower and encourage them to consider studies and careers in ICT to bridge the existing technology gender gap.

Speaking on NITDA’s role in bridging the gender gap, Ndoni noted that NITDA was determined to bridge the gap and boost participation through the special training programs for women and the conventional ICT capacity development activities of which both men and women are given the same opportunities.

She disclosed that in recent years, NITDA had trained 594, 344 Nigerians in different courses of Digital Literacy for both men and women.

“Specifically, NITDA has trained 200 women in ICT Training and Entrepreneurship and each participant is provided with laptops, Internet dongles and various software packages. 50 women trained in capacity building for digital literacy, 60 rural women trained in ICT Techprenuership and tablets distributed to each participant,” she said.

Ndoni believes that the 310 women being trained were projected to create 3,100 direct jobs and over 310,000 indirect jobs, emphasizing that the key objectives of the programs include boosting digital literacy, digital jobs creation, promoting digital inclusion, bridging the digital divide and the use of technology to address the gender imbalance in terms of economic opportunities.

She added that there were several other available NITDA’s interventions and initiatives that leverage ICT to enhance access to infrastructure, education, learning and skill development for women through the agency entrepreneurship start-up programs and capacity training in National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR) and Office for Nigerian Digital Innovation (ONDI).