Minister for Youth and Sports Development, Chief Sunday Dare, has called on youths across the country to adopt the latest digital technology to drive the nation’s economy.
He made the call at the unveiling of BleanQ, Nigeria’s foremost contactless technology system, in Abuja yesterday.
According to him, people who are abreast of new innovations cannot help but adopt and utilise them to enhance their overall productivity.
Dare, who was represented by his aide on media, Kola Daniel, described contactless technology as intelligence that should be embraced and not kicked against.
“The youths should be ready to embrace it and not shy away from it, else, we would be a backward economy,” the Minister stated.
He also said the government had made the adoption of digital technology a priority, stressing that if embraced fully by the youths would eliminate the failure rate, and correct the flaws in our systems and processes.
“The Ministry of Youth and Sports has initiated programmes aimed at equipping the youth with digital skills because he acknowledges the need to build digital knowledge and bridge the digital divide amongst youth,” Dare added.
He stated that digital technology has eased life and the way the world operates, as he charged Nigerian youths to ensure early diffusion of innovation, which holds a huge chain of value to the nation’s economy.
In his remarks, the Managing Director of Zkyte Technologies, Ayoola Dawodu, said contactless technology system promotes the elimination of physical distances and the building of an online presence that merges business profiles, centralizes transferable data and ease information transfer and access.
He explained that his company developed and introduced the innovation into the Nigerian market to eliminate paper-carrying, as it digitizes business profiles, and contacts and aids people to be present in places where they are not physically.
Speaking on the use cases of contactless technology, Ayoola said “With this innovation, you do not necessarily need to be everywhere. In Nigeria where we do not have a centralized digital system, this technology is essential to help create such a database that can be transferable”.
“It’s useful for schools, hospitals, enterprises etc. It carries business card details and you can even visit your place of work without having to be there physically. It also has a contactless way of making payments unlike the normal ATM cards” he added.
On the readiness of Nigeria to embrace such technology, Ayoola stated that Nigeria has the largest population of mobile users in Africa, stressing that citizens were already digitizing a lot of platforms in the nation.
VANGUARD
