ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopia's lately launched 5 million coders initiative would transform country's economy through promoting technology transfer and ensuring competitiveness, Officials indicated.
Recently, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched the 5 million coders initiative in which the program will be implemented in collaboration with the Government of United Arab Emirates in the coming three consecutive years.
Senior Advisor with the Ministry of Innovation and Technology, Abiot Bayu (PhD) told the Ethiopian Press Agency (EPA) that digital skills and technology are critical to the country's economic development.
He believed that the digital technology addresses challenges in health, education, agriculture, manufacturing, marketing and other areas.
As to him, Ethiopia is delayed in digital skill advancement compared with other countries although the aforementioned training program helps to improve this. Besides, in order to make Ethiopia competitive in digital skills at the global level, the initiative is designed and to benefit many citizens.
Activities such as opening up the telecom sector, introducing new technology, changing education curriculum and others have been undertaken to realize Ethiopia's competitiveness at the global level, Abiot said.
"The 5,000,000 coders training program is fundamental to ensure digital Ethiopia 2025 strategy while expanding infrastructure to produce proficient citizens in the field," he added.
Abiot further stated that a Federal and State-led committee has been established to implement the program. So far, over 92,000 citizens have been attending the training in that regard.
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Ethiopian Artificial Intelligence Institute Director General Eng. Worku Gachena (PhD) on his part said that cooperation is timely and crucial to realize digital competitiveness in the international arena.
He added that Ethiopia is working hard to exploit digital technology to ensure development so that private and public institutions need to have effective system that saves time and resources.
Achieving world-class competitiveness requires applying cutting-edge technology in agriculture, health, finance and other sectors, according to Eng. Worku.
Ministry of Innovation and Technology, National Network Facilitating Project Leader Daniel Adino said that drawing lesson about utilizing technology for development is crucial. He mentioned that countries like India, China, and others have built a strong economy assisted by technology.
"The Coders training initiative would bring a paramount significance in digitalizing the national data system. It will help to save foreign currency that Ethiopia spends on technology and create jobs," he said.
