Stakeholders in the Nigeria IT industry last week renewed their call on federal government to establish a national policy on software development to enable the country tap into the $40 billion global software market.
They made the call at the first national retreat on development of Nigerian software policy held at Airport Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos under the auspices of federal government through, National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, one of its agencies, charged with development of Information Technology in Nigeria.
The retreat was aimed at providing the stakeholders in the IT industry a veritable platform to brainstorm on the way forward on development of software policy in Nigeria, with view to come up with tool that will assist the country to be the next IT hub in the global software market.
It will be recalled that the first national committee on software development was inaugurated last December, which marked the beginning of the journey of creation a viable software industry in Nigeria.
To some It experts, the retreat was a watershed in achieving the goal of the committee, which is expected to produce a draft of the Nigerian national software policy.
In his opening address, the Director General of NITDA, Professor Cleopas Angaye said the critical role of software in information technology as a veritable tool for sustainable development, underscored the importance of the committee’s assignment.
For him, the software industry is of utmost importance to future competitiveness of economies across the globe, especially with the halo affect in creating related business opportunities.
Angaye said when the proposed national software policy finally comes on stream, it will have a conservative multiplying economic effect of millions of Nigerians for both upstream and downstream industries in the country.
They made the call at the first national retreat on development of Nigerian software policy held at Airport Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos under the auspices of federal government through, National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, one of its agencies, charged with development of Information Technology in Nigeria.
The retreat was aimed at providing the stakeholders in the IT industry a veritable platform to brainstorm on the way forward on development of software policy in Nigeria, with view to come up with tool that will assist the country to be the next IT hub in the global software market.
It will be recalled that the first national committee on software development was inaugurated last December, which marked the beginning of the journey of creation a viable software industry in Nigeria.
To some It experts, the retreat was a watershed in achieving the goal of the committee, which is expected to produce a draft of the Nigerian national software policy.
In his opening address, the Director General of NITDA, Professor Cleopas Angaye said the critical role of software in information technology as a veritable tool for sustainable development, underscored the importance of the committee’s assignment.
For him, the software industry is of utmost importance to future competitiveness of economies across the globe, especially with the halo affect in creating related business opportunities.
Angaye said when the proposed national software policy finally comes on stream, it will have a conservative multiplying economic effect of millions of Nigerians for both upstream and downstream industries in the country.
This is really good!!i know a lot of nigerian programmers who are finding it hard to market their softwares just because of some sentiments about local software products which most times are incorrect.There are good softwares from Nigeria.Infact,most of these softwares from India & all that are messy.I'm talking from experience.I just hope FG will heed on time.
ReplyDeleteU're damn right Esther.There are good softwares from Nigeria though we still av a long way 2 go.We programmers could do better if the FG encourages.
ReplyDelete