Nigeria to hostbiggest technology village in Africa

NIGERIA is aiming higher in its desire to be a technologically developed country.The nation's latest desire in the science and technology sector is to build the biggest technology park in Africa. To be hosted by the Abuja Technology Village, the park would offer robust opportunities for micro, small and medium enterprises in the sector to flourish.The Managing Director of the Abuja Technology Village, Ms. Hauwa Yabani, who spoke at a workshop put together in Abuja, noted: 'Abuja Technology Village is a Science and Technology Park, STP, a development initiative aimed at creating Africa's preferred technology research, incubation, development, and outsourcing destination.'The STP will provide for the tenant technology businesses, a balanced lifestyle environment in which to operate with competitive advantage. The businesses will have access to Africa's largest consumer market, proximity to every part of Nigeria, easy access to key global destinations and enabling infrastructures.'She stressed that one of the major initiatives of ATV, under its 'Enspire' project is to develop a Business Incubation Programme that will nurture indigenous technology ideas, products and services aimed at increasing the chances of them ultimately setting up presence in Abuja Technology Village.'The incubation programme is envisioned to contribute toward encouraging entrepreneurship in Nigeria, in line with the key national development agenda of wealth and job creation.'ATV has taken a step back to redefine a sustainable framework for the promotion of technology businesses in the country. The Enspire project is designed to promote the technology incubation programme, with the FCT as a pilot scheme, before it is expanded to other states of the Federation,' she went on.She stressed, however, that the incubator alone is not enough for business development and it is necessary to provide business/ technology incubation systems to create and sustain the competitiveness of enterprises, especially SMEs at the national level.The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Senator Bala Mohammed, who declared the workshop open, said that job creation and wealth generation were two principal economic drivers all over the world. He made reference to the Job Creation bill sponsored by President Obama to the Senate of the United States of America to emphasize the essence of entrepreneurship development through small and medium enterprises as a basis to resuscitate and reposition ailing economies.Mohammed also said that business incubation was therefore an essential development process for commercialising ideas and research, encouraging and supporting innovation, encouraging young graduates to create their own businesses, creating export avenues as well as developing new industry sectors.
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