Telcos tasked on value generation, new services

Prof Umar Danbatta, executive vice chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has urged mobile operators to unlock new services, sources of value generation and revenue streams in their operations.

Danbatta, said it was necessary to innovate on how to access segments of the consumer wallets not presently allocated to communications by providing solutions to consumers’ needs in other vertical areas of education, health and government services made available through the telecom network infrastructure.

He gave the charge at the Emerging Technologies and Innovation Forum Organised by the NCC with the theme” Developing Nigeria’s Tech Ecosystem: Imperative for Improving Local Contents.”

He added the NCC will continue to encourage tech entrepreneurship and in the Information and Communications Technology sector, noting that the Commission has recently embarked on visitation to various tech startup across the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria to assess ICT development needs and challenges.

Meanwhile, Dr Jamil Galadanci, a lecturer at the Bayero University, Kano, in his presentation posited that curriculum in schools for teaching ICT-related courses should be 50 per cent theory and 50 per cent practical.

“Until these devices become part of children’s lives, they cannot start thinking of innovations using those tools later in life. I will suggest that the curriculum reviews, starting from the primary education level, continue in the secondary and tertiary levels as digital technology changes are exponential”, he said.