The Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki on Monday launched the Edo Tech Park, in partnership with Decagon, an elite software engineering and leadership training institute, with an assurance that the state was on course to achieving a digital economy before 2025.
Obaseki, who made the submission while addressing guests during the launch of the Edo Tech Park with the theme, “Building the next generation of tech leaders,” said his administration is leveraging on the successes recorded in the first term to train and host a minimum of 15,000 software developers in the next four years.
He said the system would be open to youths with the right skill-set across the state, adding: “We have electricity and fibre optic cables and need the people to be trained on digital skills to thrive and contribute to the state’s economy; this is what Edo Tech Park is all about.
“As an administration, we have been using technology; it is not new to us. All we need to do is to integrate it into our system especially in security. We are already working on a command-and-control center, where people will put calls through to get help.”
The governor added that the focus of his administration is to make government work for Edo people, reassuring that he will continue to deliver the dividend of democracy to the people.
Obaseki continued: “We won our election convincingly based on our performance in the last four years. It’s clear to us that as long as we want to retain power, we must work for the people. If the government must work, technology must be involved. In the next four years, we would focus on technology and create a digital economy.
“As a state, we have used technology to enlarge the way we interact and do business, improve capacity for change, build infrastructure, improve the economy and create employment and entrepreneurship.
“One of our key pillars is partnership because we can’t do it all alone. We have achieved a lot in the last four years because we have continued to partner with investors in various fields.”
“In the education sector, we have embraced technology for teaching and learning through the Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (EdoBest) programme. We have used technology for economic development and job creation and now we want to equip our youths with skills to build global careers,” he added.
In his remarks, Chairman, Decagon, Mr. Chika Iwobi, said the trainees would receive six months intensive training and would be accommodated on site.
“We chose Edo because we found in Governor Godwin Obaseki’s administration a vision that was complementary to ours; our trainees are really going to transform Edo within the next ten years,” he added.
