Abuja – Mr Andrian Hall, the Chief Operation Officer of Extensia, UK, an Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
firm, on Friday, called on African leaders to address the challenges facing ICT sector to develop the continent.
Hall made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of the Innovation Africa Digital Summit 2016 held in Abuja.
The officer said Africa had so much to benefit from ICT as it would enable the continent to tackle so many challenges bedevilling it.
He added that “you have to identify what the challenges are in agriculture, in business, in education and in healthcare and from that, you can
build ICT solutions to tackle them, especially with some applications in mobile phones.
“Africa like the rest of the world is driving innovation and the first thing to do is to ensure connectivity.
“People use their lap tops and mobile phones in different ways and connectivity allows them to access information and researches and that is ICT.”
Hall explained that looking at the innovation in Africa, young innovators were finding solutions that would fit the needs of their country within Africa.
He noted that ICT was a huge investment, stressing that efforts should be made by African leaders to harness the sector and make it relevant to their peculiarities.
Mr Ayotunde Coker, the Managing Director, Rack Centre, said the ICT sector would be more lucrative if Africa developed more capability around software growth, innovation and leverage on mobile technology building.
He said significant development would be achieved and Nigeria could drive ICT Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contribution up to 18 per cent in the three to four years to come. (NAN)
