By Ogenyi Ogenyi,Uyo
Akwa Ibom Innovation Network, organizers of Akwa Ibom Tech Week 2023 has said that their target is to groom 10, 000 young tech experts that could earn a minimum of N500, 000 monthly in the next four years.
Mr Hanson Johnson, President of Ibom Technology Network who made this known to newsmen at the Ibom Tech Week holding in Ikot Ekpene yesterday said the group was also working towards making thousands of jobs available for young people with needed skills in different fields of tech.
At the event which brought together tech enthusiasts, industry leaders, and innovators from around the globe to effectively explore the opportunities in emerging technological advancements and foster collaboration for a brighter future, Johnson said the network would continue to build capacity for talents.
The president who decried dearth of needed skills inspite of growing opportunities however reasoned that enhanced partnership with the government, private sector, educational institutions as well as international bodies would be of essence.
“Opportunities are there in Tech, anyone who becomes employable would have a ready job. To achieve this, partnership with Government, academic world, private sector is necessary.
“We are in partnership with: International Center for Environmental Sustainability and Energy Research, in the University of Uyo and Tetefund Center for Computational Intelligence, to make sure that the innovations are backed with research and data to give investors confidence.
“We are trying to get 10,000 people work from here. Not all of them should work for companies outside, there should be companies here too. When we create these innovations, we should be able to also help indigenous people to work from here.
“Out of this event, we have established partnerships. We have people that are interested already in working with us. We have people that came in to see how far; and they are convinced.” He explained.
The president noted that, a total of 13 tech hubs and 109 experts participated in the weeklong event while the network has connected over 1000 young tech experts with jobs around the globe.
“The event is a platform for visibility, opportunities and network for those who are skillful and ready. We only recommend quality talents to keep the Tech on”. He explained.
Johnson also disclosed plans by the Network to develope and obtain licence for Ibibio language tech register, vocabularies and codes to interpret Technological terms.
“A group of language experts, software developers, within the communication network community have come together, to start work on Ibom Tech Language project. We are taking advantage of the event to launch the initiative.
“Number two, African talents do not have evaluation framework with the world, Ibom Innovation Network is championing an initiative to come up with African Tech Talent Evaluation Framework. To initiate a structure in a framework that would enable revenue sharing.
“This is a situation where people are trained for free but partners are contacted to pay for such training. The framework would ensure that those that were so trained would have their money splitted when eventually employed to pay back for their training, with such system, partners would be more comfortable to train talents in Tech.
“We have also come up with Akwa Ibom Angels Network, within Akwa Ibom, there are already investors who are investing from outside. Ibom Angels Network are those sourcing for local and international funding for Ibom Tech Network initiative.” He intimated”. He said.
Akwa Ibom Tech Week 2023 is the gathering of men and women in tech including Content creators and ICT influencer to foster innovation while driving the technology ecosystem in the State aimed at creating employments for skilled youths as well as offer opportunities for skill training and empowerment.
