Investment in digital infrastructure holds Nigeria’s Industrial Revolution 4.0—Amangbo
The immediate former Group Managing Director/CEO, Zenith Bank Plc, Peter Amangbo, has called for massive investments in digital infrastructure, arguing that only such move can effectively situate Nigeria’s quest for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Speaking as his lead presentation at the just concluded Computer Professionals (Registration Council) of Nigeria (CPN) IT Assembly in Abuja, the banking wizkid, represented by the Executive Director, Zenith Bank, Maitama Branch, Umar Ahmed, he revealed that the unprecedented adoption of technology in every walks of life has made it imperative for Nigeria to step up investments in ICT.
In his paper titled; ‘Digital Infrastructure: Defining the Next Step; a Financial Services Perspective,’ Amangbo argued that “The new era will witness monumental shifts enabled by convergence of the physical environment and digital space – driven by ubiquitous connectivity, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, robotics, and cloud computing, to facilitate the ‘Internet of Things”.
According to him, “It may not be heavily prevalent in our local environment currently, but this wind of change is intensifying. It will bring massive disruptions to the traditional ways we have been doing things.
“Making the appropriate investments and adjustments is key to our relevance in the global economy of the future. One major area to invest is in digital infrastructure both at the public and enterprise levels.
“The enabling environment for entrepreneurship and development of start-ups should also be created through progressive regulation of sector players. Access to finance will also spur the growth of digital infrastructure entrepreneurs.
Amangbo stressed further that “Collaboration between the public sector and private sector players is paramount. While we may consider it appropriate for businesses to compete, we must also collaborate to collectively break new frontiers and maximise the opportunities that digitalisation offers.”
In his remarks, the President, Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), Prof. Adesola Aderounmu, corroborated Amangbo’s views, saying “The IT sector has kept its trajectory of organic evolution and revolution in Nigeria and the entire world, because it is a unique industry where change, innovation and transformation are constant phenomena shaping the present and defining the future”.
According to Prof Aderounmu, time has come for Nigerian IT experts to understand that “technology trends are relentlessly evolving at the speed of the future, which they must keep up with or risk missing the train”.
