As a concrete demonstration of its pioneer status of being the first State in Nigeria to align its digital economy policy direction with that of the Federal Government’s, the Imo State has introduced a weekly youth competition to ignite and unlock students’ digital literacy ingenuity and innovation in the State.
The competition tagged: ‘SkillUpImo Challenge’, is a sub-initiative of SkillUp Imo, a broader and premier human capacity development programme launched by the State Government in December, 2022. As a propeller and offshoot of the SkillUp Imo Project, the SkillUpImo Challenge will help to fire up digital innovation and ideas among students in the state with cash prizes handed to winner each week.
The SkillUpImo Challenge is expected to drive the overall objective of the SkillUp Imo Project, focused on empowering citizens of Imo State otherwise called Imolites with cutting-edge digital skills that will keep them relevant in the 21st century; among others.
At the maiden edition of the SkillupImo Challenge held in Owerri earlier in the week, a student of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO) Centre, Chucks Official was adjudged winner in digital skill innovation, in the first week, based on shared experiences, ingenuity and digital innovation exhibited i.
While presenting cash prize to the winner, the Hon. Commissioner, Ministry of Digital Economy and E-Government in Imo State, Dr. Chimezie Amadi, said the Skillup Imo Challenge will accelerate the actualization of broader objectives of the Skillup Imo.
The broader objectives, according to him, are to train 300,000 Imolites over the next three years, with 100,000 trained each year; connect 60 per cent of the graduands to high-paying jobs as well as empowering 40 per cent of the graduands to be their own bosses, becoming tech entrepreneurs and launching their own companies, among others.
According to him, as the training of the first batch of 100,000 youths progresses in 2023 under the Skillup Imo Project, which aims to train 300,000 over the next three years, the sub-initiative, SkillUp Imo Challenge has been created to sustain the interest of the youth and boost excitement in the digital skill acquisition programme.
Amadi, a firm believer of innovation and creativity, said through the SKillUpImo Challenge, a student stands the chance of winning cash or other form of prizes each week for demonstrating great commitment to learning and putting good efforts to show workings of skills learnt.
He also stated that the first batch of 5,000 students from the 100,000 that will be trained this year, will be graduated by the end of January 2003, to immediately bring onboard the next batch of beneficiaries of the digital skills acquisition programme for training.
While commending the students on their seriousness and diligence exhibited so far, the Commissioner encouraged the youths to do more and be more. “Be more of a doing person than a talking person. The SkillUpImo Project is all about creating content that can be marketed using digital tools that the public is able to embrace, consume and pay for,” he said.
Amadi assured that with the ongoing implementation of the Project, the Senator Hope Uzodinma-led administration would soon realise its vision of making Imo State the Digital Skills Hub of Africa, as he is prepared to provide necessary support and tools to accomplishing the lofty digital economy objective of the Project.
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