NCDMB graduates 500 youths from its GSM training programme
By Uthman Salami
The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has successfully graduated 500 youths from Bauchi State in GSM phone repairs, hardware, software & entrepreneurship development under the Board’s Youth Empowerment Programme.
This particular graduation is fifth in the series of the Board’s training as similar trainings had been successfully pulled through in Kano, Kaduna, Cross River and Yobe States thereby rendering over 2,900 youths empowed.
While speaking at the end of the ceremony the Executive Secretary of NCDMB, Engr. Simbi Kesiye Wabote indicated that the Board conducted the training as part of its mandate and in line with Mr. President’s commitment to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty.
Wabote maintained that the empowerment programme is targeted 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 others.
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.”
On his part, the General Manager of the Research, Statistics and Development, NCDMB, who was ably represented by Alhaji Abdulmalik Halilu, stressed that the Board’s intervention in the ICT sector and structured collaboration with 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.
He further disclosed that the GSM revolution and the deregulation of the ICT sector in 2001 has induced unprecedented growth in teledensity from 1.89 per cent to 104.41 percent in 2020 and its contribution to GDP increased from 0.5 per cent to 15.05 per cent in 2020.
He however charged the beneficiaries to consolidate on the gains and achieve high local content level from the acquisition of GSM phones, hinting 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.
He pointed that the GSM training has provided trainees with ample opportunity to harness the potentials in the ICT sector based on the unique End2End training delivery model.
He, therefore, further challenged the graduands to dream big by building on the NCDMB E2E model to contribute in the development of a national technology ecosystem that is innovative, productive and resilient.
