INTRO 

The Honourable Minister took some time off last week therefore our usual Week in Review will be focused on highlighting our ongoing strategic initiatives and programmes, as well as outline next steps and milestones over the next year.

MINISTRY INITIATIVES 

• 3 MILLION TECHNICAL TALENT (3MTT): Over 30,000 Fellows of the 3MTT programme have been trained in the first cohort with another 60,000 currently in the second cohort. We are on course to take that number to 270,000 in the next 6-9 months. 
• FIBRE FUND: We are engaging with our development funding partners to finalise the SPV structure that will see the delivery of 90,000km of fibre-optic cable across Nigeria. The deployment of this project should commence within the next one year.
• BUILD-A-THON: We are introducing thousands of secondary school students to embedded systems and maker culture through Build-A-Thon. The programme which started early 2024 with 1,500 students in 3 states across the country, has expanded to 14 states with over 5,000 students benefiting from this month’s Build-A-Thon Holiday Camp. We plan to further expand this programme to more states to enable an increased number of students benefit.
• PROJECT 774 LG CONNECTIVITY: We are leveraging on the capacity of NIGCOMSAT, Galaxy Backbone Limited, and NITDA as we intensify efforts towards achieving full internet coverage of all 774 LG secretariats across Nigeria within 12-18 months.
• FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATION (4IRTA) & NIGERIA ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE RESEARCH SCHEME (NAIRS): After awarding grants totalling N200million under these two thematic programmes to 55 Nigerian researchers and innovators, we are collating the outcomes of their demonstration projects so as to scale relevant solutions to businesses to drive increased productivity. We plan to expand these demonstration projects to other sectors such as education and healthcare.
• NATIONAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE STRATEGY (NAIS) & AI COLLECTIVE: The National Artificial Intelligence Strategy draft document is currently being reviewed by MDAs, following which it would be adopted as a national policy to guide all our efforts in AI. We have also formed the AI Collective which will collaborate on research, projects of interest, hackathons, and seminars so as to develop an inclusive approach to Nigeria’s AI initiatives.