By Olusegun Olanrewaju
Microsoft Corporation has created 2,000 jobs and 1,900 support engineers, as well as invested $12 million in youth programmes in cash, kind and product discounts in Nigeria, the Country Manager, Nigeria/Ghana, Ola Williams, said yesterday.
At the official inauguration of Microsoft African Development Centre (ADC) West Africa office in Ikoyi, Lagos, yesterday, she lauded the activities of support groups and collaborating partners that have been assisting the corporation to benefit from its network.
Williams reiterated the commitment of the corporation to contributing to digital skilling for five million Nigerians and creating 27,000 more jobs for Nigerians.
And from a vantage positioning for a digitalised economy, Nigeria will be eyeing digitalised governance by the year 2030, the minister of communication and technology and digital economy, Isa Pantami, disclosed yesterday.
Pantami made the disclosure at the official inauguration of Microsoft African Development Centre (ADC) West Africa office in Ikoyi, Lagos, yesterday.
According to the minister, the unveiling of the office complements the policies executed by the Federal Government so far on the pillars of digital development, which are built on eight pillars.
These, according to him, include development and regulation, digital skills, infrastructure, service infrastructure, digital navigation, digital navigation, society and emerging instructure, as well as distant connection and indigenous content and development.
The minister welcomed the establishment of the new ADC office, in his view, it will support the delivery of growth in the national digital economy.
He said the new digital skill centre would play a big role “in what we’ve been agitating for, a paradigm shift to employ skills not dependent on paper qualification.”
The minister reiterated his earlier position that Nigerian graduates and youths should strive for skills acquisition and not paper qualifications, to make them employable.
“What this means is that recruitments should be more on skills and not paper qualifications as is the global practice.
“You have to learn hard and soft skills, including social skills that are critical, analytical, complex problem solving, public presentation, interaction with people, not only theoretical,” Pantami said.
In her remarks, Microsoft’s Vice President for Identity, who is responsible for controlling all African centres, Joy Chik, said the 22 years the corporation has been operating in Nigeria, more Africans have been brought under skill acquisition programmes.
She said there had been tremendous progress as some 80,000 students have benefitted from internship programmes in just three years while some 500 engineers have been employed.
