Cyber Security : FG Seeks Collaboration To Achieve Nat’l Talent Prog

The Federal Government has called for effective collaboration with development partners to enable the country achieve the National Talent Export Program aimed at addressing the gaps in Cyber security globally.

The National Coordinator, National Talent Export Program in the Ministry of Trade and Investment, Dr. Femi Adeluyi made the plea in Abuja at the flag off of the World Bank project cyber school Ideas initiative.

Dr. Adeluyi while applauding the World Bank for the project and the facilitators said Cyber crimes globally was at its peak and to address this security experts must tackle the menace in line with the federal government’s agreement at the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA),

Adeluyi who said the initiative seeks to position Nigeria as an export hub for talent outsourcing in Africa following the example of India, Bangladesh, Mexico and the Philippines to shore up Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings and position Nigeria as an export hub for talent outsourcing in Africa.

According to him, “Cyber security is a big aspect of emerging technology, right now, we have cyber security because we want to address Cyber crimes, Cyber crimes as at last year was valued at ten point eight trillion US dollars, so in other words if Cyber crimes was a country it will be the third largest country or richest country in terms of GDP. So we need to build up Cyber security professionals to address it. As at the last study there are gaps of three point four million security experts and Nigerians can take advantage of that and train our people to occupy those roles”.

On his part, the convener of the programme, Oscar Ekponimo said over five hundred vulnerable youths will benefit from the free cyber and mentorship training to meet the present realities in the digital space and national economic development.

Mr. Ekponimo who is also the founder of Gallery of Code and Chowberry said, the programme became necessary towards combating unemployment among youths most especially the vulnerable groups which include people with disability and women to exploit their potential in the cyber space and contribute positively to the nation’s development.

Also speaking at the occasion, Mr. Musa Dabra of Cloud Engineering stressed that lack of mentorship had deprived a lot of youths to fully utilize their ability for positive ventures that can distract them from engaging in social vices inimical to the nation’s security threat called for effective public private collaboration towards job creation and poverty reduction in the country.

The programme which is a world bank project is to ensure youths are groomed in the cyber space in areas of programming, Artificial intelligence and cloud engineering.

Florence Adewale, Edited By Grace Namiji