The co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Co-Creation Hub (CcHUB) – Nigeria’s foremost tech incubator – Bosun Tijani, has said that in order for the paucity of tech talents in Nigeria to be bridged, the fundamental things need to be done.
Tijani, who spoke in an interview, said the country needs to make sure that its universities understand that we are now in a digital economy and they need to revamp their curriculum in a way that is relevant for what the world is seeking. A university graduate should have the basic knowledge.
“If you study computer science at the university, you should have the basic knowledge to function in a software related company.”
“At the moment, that’s not the case. The curriculum in the country is weak, so you find that most of the good software developers we have are self-taught by people that have learnt from places like Andela or are members of CcHub,” Tijani said.
Speaking further, the CEO said there is a growing interest among young people to want to go the route of engineering, even though the level of engineering is more of software, and we have seen few people that are becoming interested in hardware engineering.
“But what I think would then happen is more people that would take biology, chemistry and all these kinds of things seriously.”
Speaking on the greatest challenge facing Nigerian startups, Tijani said one of the biggest challenges would possibly be the penetration of the Internet.
“The products these people are pushing to the market are digital. At the very basic level, they need to work on devices that have access to the internet. So, if you find out that internet service is unavailable or unaffordable, there is a limit already to the number of customers you could approach. So that is a significant problem.”
In May, Facebook launched NG_Hub in Lagos-its first flagship innovative space in Africa, in partnership with Co-Creation Hub (CcHub). Last week, they both collaborated on another mentorship programme in Nigeria, tagged: FbStart Accelerator programme aimed at empowering local start-ups and students with funding, technical and business support to optimise their products for growth.
Facebook through this Hub is providing support to different initiatives, from basic things like digital security training, digital literacy training, support for small businesses and technology ecosystem in the country.
CcHub is responsible for it, but it gives Facebook the platform to do much more for the larger economy in Nigeria.
- Culled from TECH Dot AFRICA