Empowering 5,000 youths on digital skill by Uzodimma is a right step in a right direction
By Peter Dibia
More often than not, opportunities of tomorrow only favour those who prepared for it either today or yesterday.
Self development starts by acquiring relevant skill that will help him or her to contribute their quotas towards the economic development and growth of the society.
Acquiring digital skill is good achievement. In fact, it is a welcome development that the government cued into it to equip our today’s youths for better tomorrow. It seems like a novelty, however, it is not a new development, but rather a positive step.
Digital skill has become so crucial so much that an individual needs to acquire them to remain relevant in today’s workspace.
With the development of artificial intelligence, the need for man to carry out certain tasks are being eroded. This raises the question of what to do in such a situation? Why do you need to have digital skill? What skill to acquire or improve on? When to start? Where and how to remain relevant in today’s digital workspace?
The future of the digital space is already being shaped by digital skill yet there is a gap in the number of digital jobs available and the number of people who are trained to work on it. It is more important to note that these digital jobs are shaping the economy of today.
According to International Telecommunication Union (ITU) data, despite the rapid growth in Internet penetration over the past five years, under half the world’s population (3.7 billion) still does not use the Internet. In their recent research, 87% of people use the Internet in developed countries, compared with 44% in developing countries. This has also helped in intensifying the digital skills gap and leaving consequences in its wake.
Coronavirus pandemic made us realize the importance of digital skill and the future of businesses. Most businesses suffered during the pandemic because a tangible percentage of their workforce has little or no prior knowledge of basic digital skill.
Having given the alluded points, it behoves on me, to dwell intoto in my today’s write up. I am Peter Dibia, one of the beneficiaries of batch A Skillupimo Program, I participated fully in the program which was organized and fully funded by the Imo State Government through the Ministry of Digital Economy, it will be unfair of me if I did not talk about it for world to know about it.
Notably, the Imo State Ministry of Digital Economy and E-Government (IMDEEG) was created in 2022 by the people-orientated administration led by His Excellency, Distinguished Senator Hope Uzodinma, the Governor of Imo State, to facilitate the transformation of Imo State into a digitally empowered society and knowledge-based economy through the effective use of digital skill hence the world enjoys the service of ICT.
I remembered during our first week of training, we were told that the essence of establishing the ministry was to build a Smart Cities which will leverage on Digital Technology to Drive Governance, Innovation And Entrepreneurship While Promoting Value Creation And Prosperity for all which is in line with shared property government.
After the Flag Off of the program, the news was everywhere, people were asking can this program be real, it is not part of politics?, So many people were discouraged by what people said then. But I was determined not to listen to them. I started the class, guess what, the class was not only beneficiary to me, but I was also assisted with transportation to the venue, given free lunch from beginning to the end. Imo youths and beyond are being trained in advanced-level digital skill in computer appreciation, device repairs and maintenance, content creation, web design and development, internet of things (IoT), machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics, cybersecurity, among others.
My inestimable readers, this wonderful opportunity is another great program that has empowered Imo youths through the shared prosperity government which has succeeded in exposing Imo youths to different forms of digital skills. Those who went for the training along side with me were be given startup grants and tools to embark on their chosen skills to help them to add value to the society while solving human problems.
The beauty of this program is that there are follow ups to all the trainees and records of their challenges taken, for continuous assistance and trainings till they perfect in their chosen careers.
This first batch which is referred to as Batch A graduated on Wednesday, the 21st of February 2023 while new set will kick off immediately. This program aims to train and empower more than 5, 000 Imolites in different Information Technology courses. For the sake of effectiveness, the various classes were divided into Preliminary Class Computer Appreciation, Spreadsheet, Word Processing, Power Point and a teacher was assigned to the class.
Intermediate class, Graphics, Video Editing, CCTV installation, introduction to programming language and the last but not the list the Advanced Class which took courses on the following, Cyber security
UiUx , Java, Mobile design, Data analytics etc.
The graduation ceremony of batch A ended well with the Governor of Imo state Senator Hope Uzodimma in attendance together with the Honourable Minister for communications and digital economy of Nigeria, Hon. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami.
Speaking to the graduands, Imo state Governor admonished the youths to take full advantage of the opportunities offered through digital skills training while charging them to go into the society and multiple in digital skills and to become a good ambassador.
Your Execllency sir, on behalf of the beneficiaries, I want to say a very big thank you for this wonderful opportunity, indeed your determination to rehabilitate, reconstruct and recover Imo State, is something your political opponents cannot stop you from doing.
To our woundefull Commissioner, Dr. Chimezie Amadi and his team, you people are the best, thank you so much for allowing God to use you all to impact in our lives, we are grateful. In my voice, am shouting!Skillupimo! ! Technology!Opportunity! People !
#SkillUpImo
