In order to assist the Investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises (I-DICE) program, which is being headed by the office of Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima, Nigeria and the French government have inked a $116 million funding agreement.
The $116 million is a portion of a $600 million financing agreement from a group of development partners aimed at generating employment opportunities in the creative and digital technology sectors of the Nigerian economy, according to Dr. Bosun Tijani, Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, who made this announcement via his X handle.
According to Tijani, the finance partners are the African Development Bank (AfDB), the French Development Agency, the Islamic Development Bank, and the Bank of Industry.
According to the minister, the agreement would significantly shift the Nigerian economy in a way that would allow for more opportunities.
In the meantime, Tijani said that an introduction to artificial intelligence (AI) course will be required of the more than a million applicants for the government’s three million Technical Talent (3MTT) program.
He claims that before the first batch of 30,000 fellows is chosen, all of the candidates are being onboarded onto the fallow platform.
The minister announced earlier this week that the program had received over a million applications. She advised the candidates to anticipate receiving further information via email.
Now that some of the applicants have verified their registration and got the email, they are being added to the companion platform. The Minister expressed his happiness that some of the applicants who have already been onboarded are finishing the AI course in a matter of hours.
“While they wait for word on the first cohort, all one million plus applicants for #3MTT are being onboarded onto the fellow platform and directed to an introductory course on artificial intelligence.” Seeing how many of them finish the course in a matter of hours gives me comfort. I can’t wait to see it all come together because I think we are onto something.
The administration has produced implementation plans, which state that the training would take place in three stages. Thirty thousand people are anticipated to be accommodated in the first phase, three million in the second, and three million in the third.
The program’s initial phase, which will be carried out in partnership with NITDA, will engage a number of stakeholders, including placement agencies, training providers, fellows, and partners.
The Minister stated that some of the skills that Nigerians would be trained in the first phase would involve using technology to improve certain functions without actually creating new technologies.
These comprise, among many other things, Project Management Software, Digital Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), CRM Management, Data Analysis and Visualization, Cloud Platforms Navigation, Graphics Design, and UX/UI Design.
