In
order to fully take advantage offered by the annual GiTEX Technology Show which holds in Dubai in October,
Nigeria has set up the GiTEX Local Organising Committee (LOC) as the official
country partner, reports ITRealms.
GiTEX Technology, ITRealms pride
itself as the premier technology event in the Middle East Africa and South Asia
(MEASA).
The technology trade show
occupies over 78,000 sqm of space, and records over 145,530 trade visitors from
144 countries in 2013. Also, more than 35,000 visitors came from Africa in the
2013 edition of GITEX where Nigeria premiered its presence by setting up the
Nigerian Pavilion which was promoted by the Nigerian Government through the
National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
This
year, ITRealms equally gathered that Nigeria is renew its 2013 presence as Official Country
Partner to become the centre of thematic activities for the five day technology
expo and conference in Dubai.
The LOC is tasked with
ensuring Nigeria’s successful participation through pre-show work-plans. While
inaugurating the LOC in Abuja last week, the Director General/Chief Executive
Officer of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mr.
Peter Jack, said NITDA has a new vision and the agency would genuinely pursue
IT development aggressively to position Nigeria in the global society.
He said Nigeria’s presence
at Gitex would offer the opportunity to explore international opportunities for
collaborations and investments that would further advance Nigeria’s burgeoning
IT sector.
“NITDA is determined to position Nigeria in that
light, and would work through multilateral stakeholders approach to get
everyone involved and achieve our core goals at NITDA,” he said, imploring the
committee to do all they could to make Nigeria’s presence at GiTEX 2014 a success and assured of
government’s support for IT development at all levels, while stressing the need
for inter-agencies collaboration and synergy.
“It is in the spirit of
partnership that NITDA has invited other agencies to be part of this
preparation and we believe that this is imperative to achieve best results,”
said Jack to the committee members.
According to ITRealms, t
he
LOC members were drawn from different private and public sectors organizations
including Nigeria Investment Promotion Council (NIPC), Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Software Practitioners of
Nigeria (ISPON), Computer Professional Registration Council (CPN), Nigeria
Internet Registration Association (NIRA), Nigeria Computer Society (NCS),
National Association of Computer Science Students (NACOSS), Nigeria Satellite
Communications Limited (NigComSat), and Information Technology Industries
Association of Nigeria (ITAN).
Others are Pinnacle
Consult LLC and Knowhow Media International – both marketing and media
consultants on Nigeria’s participation at Gitex 2014.
Members
at the inauguration meeting of the LOC include Chairman of the LOC, Dr.
Olatunji Vincent, NITDA; Mr. Yele Okeremi, ISPON; Mr. Mohammed Audu, NIPC;
Segun Oruame, Knowhow Media, Mrs. Mary Uduma, NIRA; Tunde Bello, Federal
Ministry of Agriculture; Mr. Yelwa Idris, NITDA; Mr. Mohammed Agbali, NITDA;
Mrs. Hadiza Umar, NITDA; Mr. Abass Fufore, CPN; Mr. Jide Awe, NCS; Ms. Nwigbo
Happiness, CPN; Mr.Abu Agbo Andrew NACOSS; Okafor Chukwuemeka, NACOSS; Olorogun
James, ISPON; and Amalu Ikechukwu, NigComSat.
Chairman
of the LOC, Dr. Olatunji said it was important for all stakeholders to come
together to drive Nigeria’s participation as the official country partner for
Gitex 2014. He said there was a need for all stakeholders to strongly get
everybody who has something innovating to showcase at Gitex to use it as a
global platform to show the world what Nigerians are doing.
For Mr. Oruame who
later coordinated the meeting said preparations had begun already since Nigeria
officially enlisted to be partner for Gitex 2014 and said there was need for
the committee to expedite actions to meet up with the demands of the Dubai
World Trade Centre (DWTC), organisers of Gitex to ensure that deadlines for all
preparatory items are met.
The LOC stressed the importance of early
marketing and publicity activities as the committee works on actualizing the
necessary roadshows to engage local stakeholders in Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt,
Abuja and Enugu where the NCS conference will be holding in July this year.
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