…Gov AbdulRazaq driving innovation, youth empowerment – Ishola
Kwara State Government’s 3 Million Technical Talents (3MTT) initiative at the weekend organised a graduation and hackathon session for the 3MTT Cohort 2, with Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq saying the agenda was to promote digital literacy, innovation, and economic growth in the State.
The programme, according to the Special Assistant to the Governor on Digital Innovations, Hon. Kayode Ishola, was an initiative of the Federal Government through the Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, adding that Kwara was among the first States to key into it by launching an intensive registration and sensitisations drive across the 16 local government areas of the state. It had produced the first set of graduates under 3MTT cohort 1, he added.
The programme featured various segments such as a panel discussion, a raffle game for tech creatives and a hackathon product demo.
The winner of the hackathon went home with N500,000 while the first and second runners-up got N200,000 and N100,000 cash rewards respectively.
The panellists were Prof. Oluwakemi Christiana Abikoye, a lecturer, Department of Computer Science, University of Ilorin; Dr. Abdulrauf Uthman, Dean, Faculty of Computer Science and IT. Al-Hikmah University; and Executive Director, TruORGANIC Initiative, Engr Olaide Olawuwo; among others.
In his remarks, the Commissioner for Planning and Economic Development Hon Aliyu Kora Sabi;
said the digital-driven initiative will create employment opportunities for youth, check insecurity, enhance efficiency in civil service, and curb corruption within the system.
In his introductory remarks, the Special Assistant on Digital Innovations, Kayode Ishola, said the state government provided laptops to deserving tech talents across learning centres to ease and support learning and launched the Kwara Digital Economy Portal to connect them to more opportunities while lauding the
Governor for his government’s commitment to digital transformation, and how he is setting the pace in the tech industry.
Dr Habeeb Salahudeen, Chief Technology Officer, ALVEUM and one of the Keynote speakers, described the programme as a wake-up call for all relevant stakeholders on the need to see innovation as not just about technology but about people, partnerships and purposes.
Habeeb, who spoke on the topic, “Shaping the Future: Using Tech for Sustainable Innovation in Kwara”, urged the policymakers and other government officials to continue to champion policies that enable
groundbreaking projects and sustain the movement of building 21st-century generations in technological and innovative solutions.
