Abuja – The Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), is partnering with Dubai World Trade Centre to identify and showcase young talents in Information Communication Technology in the country to the global community.
To this end, a representative of the United Arab Emirates- (UAE) based trade centre, Mr Bilal Al-Rais, visited the Executive Secretary of NIPC, Mrs Uju Hassan-Baba, in Abuja on Thursday.
Al-Rais told newsmen shortly before a meeting with his host that the partnership was in furtherance of an outreach programme of the trade centre aimed at identifying ICT start-ups in the country.
According to him, the partnership also involves the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), and some other public and private sector organisations in the country.
“The Dubai World Trade Centre is the organisers of the fastest growing large-scale ICT exhibition in the world called Gitex Technology Week.
“We are mandated by the Government of Dubai to focus on ICT start-ups on a global level and we have an outreach programme dedicated to identifying who these fantastic start-ups are.
“Under this programme, we are scouting for the start-ups in Nigeria to enable us to put forward investors to them and provide them with mentorship in a variety of incubation zones.
“The ultimate objective is to support them through their journeys of increasing their business opportunities to the global community at Gitex, which comes up in October 2016.”
Al-Rais, who is the Director of Sales Exhibitions and Events Management of the centre, said his team would be working with universities, polytechnics and other technology incubation centres in the country.
Hassan-Baba, on her part, said the partnership followed a discussion between an NIPC team and the centre’s management at the 2015 edition of Gitex in Dubai in October.
“What they are trying to do is to assist young people to start up their own businesses in the ICT sector. NIPC is ensuring that investments come into all sectors of the economy.
“So, this is the start-up that will help harness the creativity of our young people in ICT. So, this is the aim of the partnership.
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“The fact that they came back after we met with them in Dubai a few weeks ago is a clear indication that they are ready to invest in the creativity of our young people.
“I urge our young ICT talents to take advantage of this opportunity and contact us so that we can process them unto the Dubai World Trade Centre programme’’, she said. (NAN)
