Ibom Innovation Network to lift 10,000 youths out of poverty – President

Akpan Umoh, Uyo

The Ibom Innovation Network, organisers of Akwa Ibom Tech Week 2023 say it is targeting to take not fewer than 10, 000 young people out of poverty in the next four years.

Mr Hanson Johnson, President, Ibom Technology Network, disclosed this, during an interactive session with newsmen at the ongoing Tech Week 2023 at Four Points by Sheraton Hotel, Ikot Ekpene on Wednesday.

Johnson added that young people are expected to earn a minimum of N500,000 monthly using technological innovations.

He said that there were thousands of jobs available for young people with needed skills in the field of technology.

According to him, all the young ones need is capacity building, to have quality talents and to be able to deploy such talents effectively.

Our correspondent reports Akwa Ibom Tech Week 2023 is the gathering of Technology Networkers, Content creators, ICT influencers on a mission to foster innovation while driving the technology ecosystem in Akwa Ibom State.

Johnson said the event is also to create employment for skilled youths as well as offer opportunities for skill training and empowerment, adding that opportunities are there but those available are not employable because of a lack of skills.

He said that to achieve its objectives, Tech Week, partnership with the government and private sector, universities as well as international bodies would be of essence.

“Opportunities are there in Tech, anyone who becomes employable would have a ready job. To achieve this, partnership with the government, the academic world, private sector is necessary.

“We are in partnership with: the International Centre for Environmental Sustainability and Energy Research, in the University of Uyo and the Tetfund Centre for Computational Intelligence, to make sure that the innovations are backed with research and data to give investors confidence.

“We are trying to get 10, 000 people to work from here. 

“Not all of them should work for companies outside, there should be companies here too. When we create these innovations, we should be able to also help indigenous people to work from here.

“Out of this event, we have established partnerships. We have people who are interested already in working with us. We have people that came in to see how far and they are convinced,” Johnson said.

He said that a total of 13 technology hubs participated in the Akwa Ibom Tech Week 2023, and 109 members of the Tech community, participated in the event.

He added that within the first three days of the eleven days long events, over 1, 000 people have already been connected to related jobs around the world.

Johnson disclosed plans by Ibom Tech Network, to hire linguistics experts to come up with registers, codes and coin words to make sure they are approved and licensed, to use as communication codes in vernacular to interpret Technological terms.

He said, “A group of language experts, and software developers, within the communication network community have come together, to start work on the Ibom Tech Language project. We are taking advantage of the event to launch the initiative.”