This assurance was made by Kashifu Inuwa, the NITDA’s Director-General at the just concluded five days training and empowerment program on Digital Skills and Entrepreneurship program organized for People Living With Disabilities, (PLWD), the South-South edition which was held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

The NITDA boss who was represented at the closing ceremony by Aristotle Onumo, the Acting Director, Corporate Planning and Strategy, maintained that empowering differently able people in our society would promote digital inclusion.

While describing digital transformation as one of the panaceas to the mirage of problems confronting the nation, Inuwa maintained that training and empowering the PLWD is part of the initiatives to lift Nigerians out of poverty, hence the approval of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy, NDEPS, by president Muhammadu Buhari in 2019.

He said the training and empowerment for the “differently able” in our society are to make them financially independent and close the digital divide created by their conditions.

He further states that; “the empowerment program is one of the many opportunities given to Nigerians towards the implementation of the NDEPS agenda.

This program also speaks to three pillars of NITDA’s Strategic RoadMap and Action Plan, SRAP 2021-2024, which are Digital Transformation, Digital Inclusion, and Digital Literacy and Skills, all of which were designed to make Nigeria a sustainable digital economy.”

“Through the training, NITDA has been able to provide opportunities for participants to acquire the ability to use digital technology to create an enterprise that would culminate into wealth creation”, he said.

Inuwa, while encouraging the beneficiaries of the empowerment program to continue to engage in personal development which would aid the increase of their productivity added that they should return to their various communities and transfer the knowledge to others.

The Director-General affirmed the NITDA’s continual inclusion of PLWD in all its initiatives adding that attaining a digitally inclusive society requires collaborative efforts from all stakeholders.

While encouraging the PLWDs to be more industrious, Inuwa quoted Dr. Ashi Mary Magdalene of the Department of the Special Education University of Calabar who posits that “no matter how disabled anyone is, they should not feel sorry for themselves. The disabled are not special, just a little different.”

The lead, Technical and Operations, Rivers State ICT Department, Mr. Austin Dimkpa who represented the State government at the closing ceremony remarked that the empowerment program provides an opportunity for the beneficiaries to join the league of the financially stable people in the world adding that the 10 richest people in the world are in the Information Technology sector.

While expressing his profound appreciation to NITDA for training and empowering the PLWDs in Rivers State with computers and IT working tools, he advised beneficiaries to make judicious use of the tools to better their lots and reduce their reliance on other people.

The program is the combination of execution of two initiatives from the seven NITDA’s Strategic RoadMap and Action Plan SRAP 2021-2024, which are Digital Transformation and Digital Literacy and Skills.

Digital Transformation enables the facilitation of digital inclusion program for people living with disabilities (PLWDs) and other digitally excluded people aimed at increasing the level of digitization and digitalization across both public and private sectors.

Meanwhile, Digital Literacy and Skills is focused on massive training of Nigerians from all works of life to increase the rate of digital literacy and skills among Nigerians and create a pool of global competitive human capital towards the drive of digital transformation in the public and private sector.

The two pillars promote the creation of capacity building schemes for digital entrepreneurship.

The capacity building program would take place in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Interested participant should indicate by filling the application form on the website HERE.

The registration of PLWDs by NITDA commenced at 10am on Tuesday 11th January 2022 and closes by midnight of Tuesday 18th January 2022, according to a statement signed by Mrs. Hadiza Umar, head, Corporate Affairs and External Relations at NITDA