The Director-General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mallam Kashifu Inuwa has been honoured with the “ICT Personality of the Year Award 2021.”
Inuwa was honoured on Friday by the Network of Advocates for Digital Reporting (NADIR) at the end of a 3-day workshop on “Digital Journalism, Media Ethics and Responsible Reporting” at PRNigeria Centre Kano State.
The Coordinator of NADIR, Mr. Dahiru Lawal described Kashifu as a focused advocate of digital literacy and inclusions towards the economic prosperity of Nigeria.
Dahiru, an award-winning fact-checking specialist pointed out that under Kashifu’s watch, NITDA has achieved significant impact through the launch of programmes such as the Nigeria Digital Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Startup Policy (NDIESP), NITDA Digital Innovation Entrepreneurship Centre, and the state-of-the-art Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR) among others.
In the citation, NADIR coordinator said: “NITDA has supported the establishment of several IT hubs, innovation and incubation parks, IT community centres and IT capacity-building centres in higher institutions of learning, as well as in unserved and under-served communities across the country.
“In addition, the agency organized capacity building and entrepreneurship training programmes for thousands of artisans, Women, IT centres managers across the country. It also organized innovation contests such as Future-Hack, where participants receive funding and mentorship to develop marketable products and services.
“NITDA programmes have created employment for thousands of youth by supporting hundreds of start-ups, IT hubs and ecosystem through Nigeria ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship Vision (NIIEV). It also created Virtual Startup Clinic, for young people to meet with mentors, successful entrepreneurs, investors, industry specialists, business consultants and hub operators.
“The National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA) and Massive Online Open Courses initiatives are two flagship projects of NITDA to transform the critical sectors of agricultural and tertiary education, as well as delivery of digital skills and literacy to Nigerians with distributions computers in promoting digital literacy. Through the clearance of IT projects of MDAs, NITDA has continued to save billions of Naira for the economy.
Meanwhile, the Digital Journalism workshop organised by Image Merchants Promotion Ltd (IMPR) in conjunction with the Penlight Centre for investigative Journalism was supported by NITDA and the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy.
IMPR is the Publishers of PRNigeria, Economic Confidential, Tech Digest, Politics Digest and other titles.
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