LAGOS: The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has renewed its commitment to support the development and growth of Information Technology (IT) in the country. This was disclosed by Director-General, Prof. Cleopas Angaye at an interactive forum with journalists in Abuja on the activities of the agency. He said they would achieve this through their three-pronged approach of human capital development, infrastructural development and institutional capacity building. He added that the approach would be supported by various initiatives. Angaye explained that some of the initiatives of the agency include the New Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD) e-school initiative, mobile Internet unit, Nigerian Cybercrime Working Group, Galaxy Backbone PLC, as well as the CANi project that has driven uptake and spread of computers in the country. He added: “Other projects which the NITDA is driving include the Catch Them Young Policy, Nigerian Internet Registration Association (NIRA), the Rural Information Technology Centers (RITC) spread across Nigeria, IT scholarship award, Cisco Regional Networking Academy, e-Government and Governance, IT Parks, Virtual Library and development of the Nigerian ICT4D plan, among others.” The NITDA boss remarked that these projects are geared towards achieving an information-rich society where Nigeria will be rated among the first 20 leading economies of the world by 2020.
