Omobola Johnson, Nigeria's communications minister, with Virginia Ginny Rometty, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of IBM
Virginia Ginny Rometty, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of IBM, has described Nigeria as IBM’s hub for Africa, the reason the company is launching two software incubation centres in the country.
Rometty was speaking in Abuja while on a courtesy visit to Omobola Johnson, Nigeria’s communication technology minister.
According to Rometty, the software incubation centres would be set up in Lagos and Calabar as a means of developing Nigeria’s human capital.
She described the centres as a demonstration of IBM’s commitment to Africa, especially Nigeria.
“I have actually selected Africa and Nigeria especially to make our focal point for growth in the next decade and we have invested both in people, skills and some of our most precious resources such as innovation and research centres to be on this continent,” Rometty said.
“In fact Nigeria is our hub for Africa. So one of our purposes of visiting the minister today is to talk about something called the innovation hub that we shall be opening in the first quarter of 2014 and it will be focused on key industries such as in banking, telecommunications, government, oil and gas solution.”
In her remarks, Johnson said her ministry is pursuing what IBM is doing in the areas of increasing the penetration of ICT knowledge and skills in Nigeria.
“Our meeting with IBM today is to help accelerate the development of Nigeria as an important hub of global ICT centre,” Johnson said.
“First of all it get more Nigerians into the ICT and also establishing innovation Centres in Calabar and Lagos that will help solve some of the biggest challenges that we have using technology.”
