This National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Computer Warehouse Group (CWG) held a stakeholders roundtable at Radisson Blue Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos between 18 and 19 March, 2019.
The event brought together stakeholders and key representatives from government technology providers, fintechs, SME’s and the financial sector to share their thoughts and experience in building a viable software system for the financial sector in Nigeria. This is to ensure that the sector creates mutual values and churn out innovative solutions for the Nigerian market.
Stakeholders present at the event include: Honorable Minister for Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu; Minister of communication, Barrister Shittu Adebayo; The Director General, NOTAP, Dan-Azumi Mohammed Ibrahim; President, Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON), Yele Okeremi and others.
Speaking at the event, Chief Executive Officer CWG, Mr Adewale Adeyipo noted that to achieve a viable software ecosystem in the financial sector in Nigeria, all the critical players in the ecosystem must collaborate actively.
These critical players include: Universities and Govt Agencies; Government and Regulators; Investors, Financial Institutions; Incubators; tech Vendors and Consumers.
“In Nigeria, the market players are still not fully active as it should be. to achieve a viable software ecosystem in the financial service in Nigeria, all stakeholders need to collaborate actively. There must be deliberate policies and regulations that will drive such inclusiveness. The survival of our software ecosystem is dependent on the collaborations between the government and the financial service sector ecosystem.”
Chief Executive Officer CWG, Mr Adewale Adeyipo
Mr Adeyipo said that more investment is needed to empower local software companies to ensure that the ICT sector gets to the level that it contributes significantly to the country’s GDP.
He also noted that more needs to be done on the part of local software companies to seek for disruptive solutions that can compete with “foreign” software.
On his part, Director General of NITDA, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), also noted the necessity of stakeholders developing a plan to mitigate systemic risk and accelerate Nigeria’s indigenously-developed solutions to meet global standards instead of shipping billions of Naira to foreign countries for development.
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