The minister, who spoke at the Open Data conference for South-South zone, said that for Nigeria to become an integral part of the ongoing data revolution there is a need to embrace the initiative and improve data literacy as the most important driver of innovation in the 21st century. Pantami said the theme of the South South zone of the Conference in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, ”Public Data Resources: A Way forward for Digital Economy,” was designed to build capacity of the supply side of the Open Data initiative, and to share information on the Open Data Action Plan. He explained that the essence of the forum, was to enable Stakeholders brainstorm on the Review and validation of Open Data Policy Document for approval by Federal Executive Council (FEC). Pantami pointed out that the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy had since begun the process of implementing the Open Data Initiative in 2012, in line with provisions of the extant National ICT policy, and since then considerable progress had been recorded. So far, the Ministry had conducted the Open Data Conference in the South East at Enugu, and North West in Kano, where stakeholders enriched the document contributions.

Source: The Guardian December 18, 2019 04:41 UTC