SMEDAN, Google train 3,700 MSMEs operators on digital skills
The Small and Medium Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), on Monday began a digital skills training programme for 3,700 Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) operators to enhance entrepreneurial skills.
Dr Dikko Radda, the Director-General of SMEDAN, who declared the training for the North Central zone open in Abuja, said that onboarding of the programme would be replicated in the geo political zones.
He said that the programme was organised by SMEDAN in partnership with Google digital Skills and Mindthegap, digital learning platforms.
Represented by Mr Monday Ewans, the Director, Enterprise Development and Promotion, SMEDAN, Radda stressed the need for MSMEs operators to explore the digital space to grow their businesses.
While identifying digital skills as a key driver of modern businesses, Radda urged the participants to leverage it to showcase their products and services to a wider market.
According to him, digital skills are very important, especially in the post COVID-19 era.
“Normally, when you ask an average Nigerian what the challenge is, he will quickly say finance but we are saying access to skills and access to market are also important.
“We are empowering small and medium businesses with digital skills to ensure that they can go to the internet to do marketing and advertise their products.
“We place so much attention on acquisition of digital skills for small businesses because once they have the skills they are empowered to create more jobs, more wealth and eradicate poverty in the society,” Radda said.
He emphasised that the ability of businesses to thrive on the internet space during the COVID-19 lockdown indicates the importance of acquiring digital skills.
“In this digital era if you can acquire digital skills, it is an added advantage required to navigate the increasingly digitised world,” Radda said.
He pointed out that though there was a decrease in the number of MSMEs from 41 million in 2017 to 39. 6 million in 2020, the contributions of the subsector to employment rose by 3.7 per cent in 2020.
Radda attributed the rise in employment to business activities on the internet space during the lockdown.
Representative of Mindthegap, partner of Google, Mr Ntem Ekpang said that the training would bridge the gap of digital divide.
“We started a programme where we wanted to train 10 million African youths in order to bridge the gap in digital space.
“Part of what we are doing is to teach people how to onboard their businesses, I mean learning the basics of listing your businesses in Google.
“This makes your business to come out when people search for your business and the point is to make business more visible online and you have more patronage.
“During the pandemic, the biggest people were those who worked online, the top 10 richest people in the world are in the digital space.
“As a business person take your business from offline to online and make sure it is listed under ‘Google my business’ so that people can see you and you can expand your reach.
“We are working with SMEDAN because as business owners, you will remain where you are if you do not take advantage of the digital space,” he said.
Participants said that they expect their businesses to become more visible after the training.
Miss Susan Adikwu, a pastry chef, commended SMEDAN for the opportunity to participate in the training.
“Prior to this training, I have not been able to put my business online. I am hoping that at the end, I will be able to put my business out there and people will be able to locate me when they need my services,” Adikwu said.
Similarly, Mr Johnson Onakoya, marble interior designer, hopes that skills acquired would help him attract more patronage.
“The reason for keying into this training is because with this I can be visible and my potential clients can easily access my services,” Onakoya said.
