The Young Innovators of Nigeria (YIN), an NGO plans to train 5,000 youths in Information Communication Technology (ICT) by the year 2020.
Andrew Abu, the president of the group disclosed this in Abuja.
Abu said that training youths in ICT would engage them positively and ensure that local content production was promoted.
“Young Innovators is aimed at training up to 5,000 youths by 2020 because ICT is an enabler and when the youths are trained, every area of their lives will develop.
“ We are trying to step up our local content participation in ICT, we don’t want expatriates to come to Nigeria and take our jobs any longer.
“We are in short supply of skills but when we train, there are people in Nigeria who have the magnet, you show them what to do they will take it further.
“About 60 per cent of our population are youths and if we can engage them properly, give them the enabling environment they can do great things,” he said.
He said that they had commenced the training in Bayelsa and Adamawa States, adding that 400 youths were currently trained in Bayelsa.
According to him, the group discovered that ICT penetration in the state is low, hence the need to revive the ICT ecosystem.
“A lot of youths in Bayelsa depends on oil money but they have a lot of energy that could be channelled to something else in a positive way.
“We proposed to train 400 youths and the government approved. We have started the ignition programme to get young people together to find out their passion, especially in IT.
“We started in March 1, and the training is still on, we are trying to revive the entire ecosystem in the state so that ICT can drive the economy and create jobs in the state.”
Abu added that the organisation was spreading to other states for an inclusive ICT ecosystem development.
“We are talking to Edo, Rivers, Akwa-Ibom, Abia, Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi, Nasarawa, Bauchi, Kano states to train youths in ICT.
“It is country wide training. Two weeks ago we had similar training in Yola, Adamawa states.”
The YIN president said that it ensured that females were properly represented in all the programmes.
According to him, females are represented in every area in the country and carrying them along will ensure inclusive development.