This year’s Annual ICT Quiz Competition for Secondary Schools organized by CITAD will take on the 5th and 6th December, 2008. The venue shall the Conference Hall of Mumbayya House, Bayero University, Kano. Since 2004, the organization has yearly organized the event which brings students of secondary schools to demonstrate their knowledge and skills of ICTs. Last year over forty schools from four states took part in the event, in addition to a special preliminary round for Jigawa State schools. This year over 60 schools from eight states would compete in the two-stage event. The first stage is the qualifying round which will hold in some of the states during the last week of November. Winners of the qualifying round will meet in Kano for the second and final stage of the competition. This year’s competition will be supported by a number of organizations including the Kano, Zamfara, Jigawa, Kaduna States Government, Nigeria Communications Commission, Microsoft Nigeria, and many other organizations. For more information contact citadev@gmail.com.
The Nigerian office of the UK development agency, Department for International Development (DFID) has donated 50 used computers to CITAD. The donation was routed through the Computer Aid International, which is a computer refurbishing and distribution partner of CITAD, based in the UK. Miss. Anne Musyoki of the West African Desk of CAI signed the donation acceptance paper on behalf of her organization.
CITAD intends to refurbish the computers and donate them to secondary schools. This gesture is part of the contribution of the organizations to support IT education in schools. The computers were handed over to CITAD representative, Malam Isyaku Garba on 28th October in Abuja by the IT Administrator of DFID, Mr. Adesina Idris. The computers have since been brought to Kano and CITAD staff are working to refurbish them.
As part of its capacity building in ICT, CITAD has commenced a training programme for teachers of Government Secondary School, Gwale, in Gwale Local Government of Kano State. The training which began on 28th October 2008 is at as a result of a request to CITAD by the Principal of the school who said the school needed assistance to get more teachers in IT for it to utilise its ETF-donated Diginet centre. The school is one of the five secondary schools that have received a set of 20 computers each from the ETF supported Schoolnet Nigeria. CITAD is manager of the schoolnet facilities in Kano State. The training which will last for four weeks would cover basic office skills as well as techniques of IT training. Ten teachers are taking part in this first round. All the schools under the Schoolnet Project are expected to begin implementing the newly approved national computer studies curriculum for secondary schools.
In continuation of its stakeholder consultations on the Kano ICT Park the Office of the Special Adviser to the Kano State Governor on Education and Information Technology on Thursday, 23rd October held an interactive meeting with bankers and telecommunication companies. The event which held at Horizon Hotel, Kano was attended by representatives of banks and telecommunication companies operating in Kano. Speaking at the occasion, the Special Adviser Dr. Bashir Galadanci said that the forum was meant to discuss on how the state government can partner with bankers and telecommunication companies to make the ICT Park reality. He briefed the participants on the project from its conceptualization to its current stage and explained the rationale for the choice of the ICT Park as a mechanism for the implementation of the state’s ICT policy. CITAD’s Director, Y. Z. Ya’u who made presentation on the Role of Banks and Telecommunication Companies in the ICT Park identified three different roles that they could play. They include being tenants in the park, beneficiaries of outsourcing programme of the ICT Park companies and financers and partners for the infrastructure development in of the Park.
The Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) on Wednesday, 22nd October, 2008 held another round of career talk on the computer profession for students of secondary schools. The career talk which held at Government Secondary School (GSS), Dala, Dala Local Government of Kano State is part of the ongoing programme of CITAD to enlighten school communities on the importance of ICTs as well as sensitize students to take career in the computer profession. The event held at the Assembly Hall of the school. The key presentation was by Malam Ahmed A. Yakasai who in his speech stressed the need for students to make effort to acquire ICT knowledge. He said given the current educational backwardness of the north, only by embracing ICTs would we be able to bridge the gap. It is necessary for eac and every one of you to acquire computer knowledge” Mal Ahmed added. Other speakers at the event from CITAD included Yusha’u Sani, Abdullahi Ismail, Abdulrashi I. Sadiq and Abdullahi Danbalarabe.
Speaking the occasion the Principal of school, Malam Hamza Ashana thanked the facilitators for the lecture and expressed appreciation and gratitude to CITAD for electing GSS Dala to benefit from the programme. The Academic Officer of the school, Malam Kabiru Musa promised the students of the school would be participating in the coming CITAD organized Annual ICT Quiz. About 80 students attended the talk who were also given copies different publications on ICTs.
The Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) held its July Version of its Monthly Lecture Series on the 30th July, 2008 at American Corner, Murtala Mohammed Library, Ahmadu Bello Way, Kano.
The Speaker was Dr. Yusuf M. Adamu of the Department of Geography, Bayero University, Kano who made his presentations on “ICTs in Healthcare”. He thrilled the listening audience with indebt analysis of the subject matter. Among some of the points mentioned by him were: how ICTs have helped in Learning and Research, how Diagnostic Software help Doctors in consultations, how JIS help Geographers to know endemic areas and how it helps to manage the diseases dictated in such arrears. He also talked about how ICTs help in Medical Record Keeping. The challenge faced by ICTs usage according to him is lack of will power by our policy makers to put enabling environment for the usage of ICTs. He also noted that misplaced priorities are part of the problems that we have among the Policy Makers.
The session was chaired by Dr. B. A. Grema, Chairman Nigerian Medical Association, Kano State Branch, who made his keynote address on the Importance of ICTs in Effective Healthcare Delivery. He also highlighted some challenges facing ICTs usage in the Health Sector. He gave an instance where heavy HiTec instruments are lying unused due to lack of power supply that would power them.
The Lecture was attended by over 40 participants drawn from Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), Government Health Sectors, Academia, Labour, Media and Community Based Organizations (CBOs).
On Monday, 15th September 2008, Scott Reed, an intern from the Global Information Internship Program (GIIP), University of California, Santa Cruz, USA, who had been serving with CITAD completed his period and left for the USA. During his stay with CITAD Mr. Reed conducted IT training rounds for staff of CITAD, Mambayya House and the Development Research and Project Centre (dRPc). He also helped to set up new websites for CITAD (www.citad.org and www.trainin.citad.org) as well as trained the staff of CITAD to maintain the sites. In appreciation of his stay with CITAD Mr. Reed donated his laptop to the staff of the organization. Making the presentation of the laptop, Mr. Reed said that he will continue to remember and cherish his stay with CITAD and pleaded to continue to assist the organization. While receiving the donation on behalf of CITAD, the Director of the organization said that they were happy to host Mr. Reed who would now become the Ambassador of the organization in the USA. Mr. Scott Reed came to Nigeria on 22nd July and stayed for a period of almost three month. His posting to CITAD was part of a partnership between CITAD and GIIP aimed at promoting technology skill exchange and development in the area of ICT.
The Buji Youth Development Association (BYDA) organized Accountability Forum in Buji Local Government. The activity took place at the Community Primary School on Wednesday April, 3rd 2008.
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On Thursday, August 14, 2008 CITAD held its regular Career Talk Program on ICTs for students and staff of Aminu Yusuf Government Day Arabic Senior Secondary School, Hadeja. The aim of the program was to sensitize the participants about computer system and its components as well as its usages for human development in this modern world of Information Technology.
The program was attended by over 60 students and teachers. In his welcome remarks, the principal of the school Muhammad Furya Abubakar thanked CITAD for selecting his school to be among the beneficiaries of its famous Career Talk, which according to him came at the right time when the school is in dare need of the program. In his own part, the representative of Hadeja Zonal Education Office, Musa Ibrahim called on CITAD to partner with Jigawa State Ministry of Education so as to organize a bigger event that would create wider awareness on ICTs among schools in the State.
The program was facilitated by a CITAD Team consisting of Mallam Ahmed Abdullahi Yakasai, Mr. Scott Reed of the GIIP, University of California, USA., Haruna Adamu Hadejia, Abdullahi Isma’il and Yusha’u Sani Yankuzo.
Last month I took part in an ICT rural road show organized by the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) at Gagarawa, Gagarawa Local Government of Jigawa State. The event took place at the Local Government Computer Training Centre, established over three years ago. As the event progressed, participants now realizing the excellent facilities at the centre began to wonder how come that over three years since it was established nobody had been given any training from the facilities at the centre? We were to learn that since the computers were deployed, no trainers had been recruited to train potential beneficiaries of the centre. The computers have merely been kept as items of decoration to be show to visiting dignitaries and journalists. I have since found out that the situation is virtually the same in all the 27 local governments of the state. It is possible in this Jigawa State might have demonstrated some form of exceptionalism, however, the same situation could be found in virtually all the states of the federation or indeed the whole of Africa, where government officials concern with projects usually ends with the award of contracts.
The story behind this is that there is increasing unmet demand for information and communication technology (ICT) skills in the country. While basic digital literary has become globally a necessity for all, there are simply few opportunities in Nigerian and Africa for people to acquire these skills. Because of the high demands for ICT skills, the few who could train others are quickly absolved into high paying jobs in the financial and ICT sectors leaving us with facilities but not trainers.