The National Association of Computing Students across all Nigeria Universities with over 300,000 members has conferred a national Award of Champion of Nigeria Digital Economy on Mr Tim Akano, the MD/CEO of New Horizons, with a National Award as Digital Economy Champion of Nigeria.
At a well-attended NACOS annual conference that took place at Nile University on the 11th of October 2023, NACOS leadership described Mr. Akano as one of the “major pillars in the ICT transformation in Nigeria, especially with regards to the Youth empowerment and Jobs creation”.
NACOS President, Comr. Chihurumnanya Nwanevu appreciated the New Horizons CEO for his pioneering role in integrating ICT certification-based training into the university academic curriculum about 18 years ago. This decision has changed the Technology Map of Nigeria forever”. The New Horizons initiative that empowers over 100,000 youths across Nigeria universities was described by NACOS President as “incredibly rewarding, and a game changer for the youths”.
Mr Tim Akano is equally commended for setting up One Africa Initiatives Academy, a Pan Africa NGO focusing on building the generation of African leaders that will rebuild Africa OAI Academy focuses on upgrading the skills of African Youths in four areas: Entrepreneurship, Technology, Leadership, and Good Citizenship.
One Africa Initiatives Academy consists of over 10,000 youths from 50 African countries. Members of the Academy have opportunities to attend free Masterclasses organized by OAI once a month online.
New Horizons Nigeria is a franchise of New Horizons International, the World’s largest ICT training organization with offices in 90 countries. New Horizons Nigeria trains over 100,000 students yearly from different universities, and schools and also trains more students in Technical courses in more locations than any training companies in Nigeria.
In the last 15 years, Mr Tim Akano has been awarded over 150 national, continental, and international awards for his relentless roles in Youth empowerment and the digital economy and the promotion of technology skills. Mr Akano has been honored by the Federal government of Nigeria through the NYSC three times in the past three years.
In his response, Mr Tim Akano appreciated the current NACOS leadership for a well-organized and attended event.
He said:
“I truly appreciate NACOS for this special recognition given to me in appreciation of the multidimensional roles being played by New Horizons and OAI Academy in the areas of entrepreneurship, technology, and empowerment. I pledge to continue to be available to lift not only the Nigeria youths but youths across Africa”
At the close of the event, Mr Akano pledged to empower the entire 300,000 NACOS students in any of the seven hottest 4.0 skills at a most discounted price.
In conclusion, Akano advised the youths that since India dominates the software space, South Korea dominates the electronics, and Israel dominates the Cyber security space while America and China dominate the Platform Economy, “It is my ambition to get Africa youths to dominate the 4.0 Technology space, so that in the next five years, the best Artificial intelligence Engineer, greatest DevOps engineer, best Data Scientists will all be Africans, but not only Africans but the youths I have mentored”.
