THE Managing Director of one of Nigeria's leading IT training institutes based in Lagos, New Horizons training institute, Mr Tim Akano is worried that Nigeria was lagging behind in IT development.

For him, the only remedy to this situation is to embark on massive capacity building through intensive IT training.

In this interview with Hi-Tech, Akano highlighted how other countries of the world got to where they are today and said it was not too late for the country if adequate remedy is put in place.

Excerpts:

How would you say IT training has contributed to economic development in Nigeria

Most Information Technology training institutions have done a lot in impacting relevant IT skills for economic development in the country. New Horizons for instance has done so much to leapfrog the economy through IT training and empowerment.

The world is far ahead of Nigeria in IT development and New Horizons is trying to bridge the gap by taking IT training to primary, secondary and tertiary institutions.

We decided to take IT training to schools because experience has shown us that IT training achieves quicker results when taken to schools to catch the students at their youthful age.

The IT big shots of our world today started at tender ages. Bill Gates for instance, commenced Microsoft business at the age o f 13, Apple started at the age of 19, Google Boys started and came into fame at the age of 19. At this age bracket, youths tend to learn faster and achieve greater results. For this reason, New Horizons decided to take its training to young and talented Nigerians that are still in school.

Before New Horizons came on board, there were pockets of IT training centres, but by the time we commenced training, we discovered there was a gap in the country's educational system, in relation to Information Technology and we decided to bridge it through intensive IT training in schools. What New Horizons is going is to offer the kind of IT training that will challenge people into creativity and designing of things by themselves.

When we started IT training in schools, government liked what we were doing, especially after seeing the kind of students with high level IT skills that were produced from the Universities that were in partnership with New Horizons. Because government liked it, government now wants IT education to be inculcated in the curricula of tertiary institutions.

New Horizons started the integration of IT certification based training into the University curricula. Four years ago there was nothing like that in our tertiary institutions.

We pioneered it by starting with Babcock University three years ago, from where we moved to Covenant University in Otta, Ogun State , and from there to Lagos State University and other universities in the country. We took IT training to both private and government owned universities.

Today students from those universities that we partnered cannot get their B.Sc. Degrees without getting a certification in IT and graduates from those universities are now hot cakes in the labour market.

What in specific terms, is New Horizons contribution to IT training In Nigeria

New Horizons have contributed immensely in empowering youths and helping young Nigerians discover and develop their talents in Information Technology. Davidson and Riwanu for instance are two teenagers of ages 9 and 11 from Dorego Secondary School in Lagos that have benefited from our training. Today the boys could couple computers in few minutes and they have their local brand of computers called Dash Computers. These boys were trained by New Horizons in their school and we are proud of that as part of our contribution to the nation's technology advancement.

Graduates of the Universities we partnered with are the ones employers are looking for because they have special IT skills, having attained several certifications through the intensive training from New Horizons while in school.

Today New Horizons pay Youth Coppers with special IT skills as high as N120, 000 per month. In the same way other employers are looking for graduates with talented IT skills, and they go for graduates that have been trained by us.

New Horizons alone employed well over 60 graduates in 2008 and we are still paying them.

New Horizons has been able to prove to the world that Nigeria could train people in the likes of Bill Gates and Michael Dell, through the training of Davidson and Rilwanu who now have a local PC assembling plant called Dash Computers.

Why is it difficult for Nigerian University System to produce graduates with relevant IT skills that can sail them out in global market?

The reason is that the Nigerian University Curriculum has been static for some time, yet the IT word is dynamic. The truth is that when the producer is static and the consumer is not, there is bound to be a gap between them. Employers of labour are moving ahead and are looking for graduates that have new skills in IT, but unfortunately, the Nigerian University system is not turning out graduates with such new IT skills because the university system and its curriculum are static.

For university graduates to become relevant in the labour market after leaving school, such graduate has to undertake intensive training in IT after leaving school or while in school. New Horizon saw this gap long ago and decided to come with certification based training that can produce graduates with skills that will make them creative and dependable.

There is need for the producer which is the university to redesign its curriculum tailored to the modern day needs of employers.

What New Horizons did is to add value to the system by bringing the industry relevant stills to the Universities. With our training, at the end of graduation, the students are already prepared for the industry.

Since most University system cannot produce highly skilled graduates in IT, majority of the graduates are unemployable because they lack the IT skills that employers are looking for. There is difference between unemployment and unemployables. Unemployment means there are no jobs, but unemployables means there is job but the right people to employ are not available. Employers of labour in Nigeria are currently facing unemployablity. New Horizons has helped immensely to demystify unemployment in this regard by training several students with relevant IT skills.

New Horizons is in partnership with international institutions like Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco and EC Council University, and what this means is that when Universities partner with New Horizons, their students acquire relevant IT skills from such international institutions.

Could You Brief Us About New Horizons Century Nigeria Project

The Century Nigeria Project is about making technology work in Nigeria this Century. Now let's have a little retrospect of our economy.

The 17th and 18th Centuries were the Agrarian Century and Nigeria did not produce anything, while America and Europe were busy producing food for the world. In the 19th Century, was the industrial revolution but Nigeria did not make better use of the opportunity. Other nations had what they produced, but Nigeria had none to produce, instead it was mainly a consumption nation. American manufactured airplanes and Japan manufactured cars, but Nigeria did not manufacture anything.

Now in the 21st Century, there is the ICT revolution and we in New Horizons will not seat with our hands fold without contributing anything in the ICT revolution that is currently sweeping across nations.

This century is ICT century and for Nigeria to be relevant in the ICT revolution, New Horizons decided to come out with the Century Nigeria Project.

The plan is that New Horizon will empower Nigerians to be relevant in producing ICT related things that the world will consume. We want to make Nigeria a producer of ICT products this Century. That is the plan and that is our focus for the new year.

What About The Abuja Infotainment?

The Abuja Infotainment is part of the Century Nigeria Project.

It is one of the ways New Horizon is using to achieve the Century Project. We are using entertainment to drive ICT training. We are bringing in top entertainment people to Abuja in January to use entertainment to teach ICT among Nigerian youths.

It is our belief that people will learn better if entertainment is mixed with ICT training.

It is a kind of fun, but at the end of the day, people must have learnt good and relevant skills that will sell them out to employers of labour.

What Is The Impact Of New Horizon's Job Fair To The Economy?

Job Fair has been an annual event of New Horizons and we have used it over the years to bring peopled out of the unemployment market by giving them skills that will make them employable and we do it free of charge.

We gather recruitment agencies to teach Nigerians the latest skills on how to pass interview. A lot of them have been in the unemployment market for too long a time. We use the Job fair to teach people what they are supposed to know before attending interviews of any kind and how to pass interview, be it technology related or not.

What Is The Impact Of New Horizon's Partnership With Microsoft, Oracle and Cisco?

No organization can operate as an Island of its own. We are in partnership with Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco and EC Council to ensure that we expand our scope and business and then give Nigerians the best IT training.

The Century Nigeria Project for instance is being supported by Microsoft and in the same way our other partners are also supporting us.

Oracle for instance is giving our students discount on all our training in Oracle certification. Training in Oracle certification that ordinarily costs N300, 000 is highly discounted by up to 30 percent. We are also in partnership with the media, which has helped in no small measure in informing the public about most of our programmes and certification training courses.

Why Are Certification Courses Still Expensive, Despite These Discounts?

Certification programmes in IT training are generally very expensive because of the caliber of people that are involved in the training as well as the kind of training being offered by the trainers.

But what New Horizons is doing is to try and offset some of the training bills through its partnership with international organisations like Microsoft, Oracle, EC Council, among others.

New Horizons is basically after offering mass education to the people of Nigeria through its IT training and Nigerians must appreciate the impact of these international organizations in the training programme being offered by New Horzons and its partners. EC Council and our other partners for instance are offering scholarships in most of their training. EC Council is offering scholarship in global security. What our partners do is to write off certain percentage of the course programmes and our students pay the remaining amount as their fees.

Tell Us About Your Partnership With EC-Council University In Relation To Information Security

Information Security has become a major issue in all corporate organizations across the globe as a result of online hacking. Nigerians are beginning to witness such hacking where hackers break into organizations' websites, servers and infect data with all manners of virus that are capable of defrauding the organization or destroying its vital information.The Punch Newspaper and the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) have been hit in recent times, likewise many organizations, among which some may not even have noticed that they have been hit by online hackers.

For this reason, we decided to partner EC Council University, a world body that is consulting for and offering training to several countries of the world in information security. Many countries have benefited from them and New Horizons is partnering with them to bring such training to Nigeria .

Majority of Nigerians are into eBusiness and there is need for us to have sound knowledge of information security.

The training on information security from EC Council University is commencing in the first quarter of this New Year, 2009.

Do You Have Plans To Encourage Outsourcing In Nigeria

Yes we are going into outsourcing and we want to make Nigeria an outsourcing county by offering relevant skills through our training that will give confidence to international communities. Our vision in New Horzons is to see that Nigeria attain the status of outsourcing destination, where foreign communities can entrust their business and go to sleep.

By the time we are able to train people with relevant skills, most software development and hardware manufacturing from other countries could be outsourced to Nigerians who have acquired the relevant skills to handle such jobs and they will remain in Nigeria, working on different projects for other foreign countries and making their money, as well as generating money for the country.

Today Coast Erica is the third biggest outsourcing counties of the world and15 percent of its GDP comes from outsourcing. Outsourcing means working for other countries on special projects while remaining in your own country. This will help reduce crimes and increase employment and revenue generation for the economy.

Our plan is to offer relevant IT skill training to Nigerians that will enable them be useful in outsourcing jobs from other countries.

India for instance is a well known outsourcing ground all over the world, but their spoken English is poor. Nigeria has good command in English language communication and therefore stands a better chance in outsourcing if only the IT skill is there and this is exactly what we at New Horizons are doing, to train Nigerians with the relevant IT skills that will boost outsourcing in the country.

What Are Your Corporate Social Responsibilities

Our Corporate Social Responsibilities are enormous. In the last three years we have awarded overt 2,000 scholarships to Nigerians at various levels of education. We have empowered Nigerian youths with our Infotainment programme. In 2008 alone, we empowered over 120,000 Nigerian youths who attended the Infotainment programme.

We brought in our international partners and they offered training at no cost to the youths.

There Is A Gap Between The Number Of People That Passed Through IT Certification Courses And The Number Of People Employed In The Labour Market. Why Is It So?

Yes there is a noticeable gab and the reason is that employers of labour are looking out for the best among those that have acquired IT skills, and besides, employers are concerned about some relevant skills like the information security I earlier discussed. So it all depends on what people study in IT training schools and it equally depends on the kind of IT training schools from where the skill is acquired. If people go to substandard IT training schools, their products are bound to be substandard and the employer would not find such products useful.

NewHorizons for instance, took a step further to partner with international organizations to offer the best of IT training and our products are hot cake in the labour market.