Poor Information and Communications Technology (ICT) skills has been established as the major challenge affecting the growth of technology in Nigeria, South Africa and other African countries.
This is according to technology experts attending the 2014 Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco, US, who claim that 70 per cent of the challenges facing the Sub-Saharan region is as a result of poor ICT skills.
“The African continent is blessed with abundant human and natural resources, but still deficient in ICT development majorly because of poor skills, which accounts for 70 percent of the challenges there,” said Loic Le Guisquet, the executive vice president at Oracle Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
As part of efforts to reduce this major challenge that continues to hinder further growth of Africa, Oracle will take a special focus on the continent in its EMEA project which has so far opened up to 20 centres in the region, for ICT development.
“But we are ready to reduce that by investing hugely in the IT ecosystem across Africa”, Le Guisquet stated, as reported by The Guardian. An impressive advancement of technology has been reported across Africa over the past five years. However, Oracle states that this advancement has resulted in a gap in IT competencies and skills availability since Africa adopted new technologies at a rate that surpassed the availability of qualified staff.
Also at the global event, Alfonso Di Ianni, the Senior Vice President Oracle EMEA said Africa should channel its efforts towards ensuring the youths are constructively engaged in ICT development.
“For technology to support transformations in the region, organisations must have ready access to people capable of sitting up and maintaining the systems,” said Di Ianni.
Oracle, in collaboration with the Lagos State government in Nigeria, is creating an ICT hub in the country that will help youths develop basic technology skills.
