NITPA Report 2 - Meeting with Hon. Minister of Science and Tech

Dear Colleagues;

As many of you know, we had scheduled a meeting today with the Hon. Minister of Science and Technology, Prof Turner Isoun in Alexandria VA, to discuss NITPA initiatives and how the Nigerian S&T ministry could collaborate with NITPA for effective execution of the goals and missions of both entities. The meeting just ended about 2 hours ago. I must report that the meeting results surpassed our expectations as we discovered that NITPA has several intersecting interests and projects as one of the ministry's agencies, the Nigerian IT Development Agency (NITDA), headed by Prof. Olu Ajaji. We thanks Prof. Ajayi immensely for making the arrangements for this meeting to take place, and taking care of the leg-work that provided NITPA with this important
access to the honorable minister.

The meeting was attended by 8 NITPA stalwarts, including Prof Momoh, Prof Aiyegoro, Prof Aluko, Mr. Dan Eke, Prof Owei, Prof Bada, Prof. Mobolurin, and my humble self. We started with the usual pleasantries between making careful choices from our New Orlean's lunch menu. We then turned to serious discussions on the business at hand - building a synergistic alliance between NITPA and the Science and Tech ministry. We presented to the minister, NITPA's goals and objectives including documented copies of our modus operandi, the current and ongoing projects, and our expected results. We noted that NITPA is a young organization which has grown tremendously over the past six months. In that short period, our ongoing project interests include:
i Nigerian Universities IT Curriculum Audit Project
ii. Support for YTF Digital Village initiative in Nigeria
iii. Nigerian Open University (Distance Learning) Project
iv. Nigerian Health Workers Training Initiative, with Howard University
v. AIDS Containment Project through technology and Education
vi. Hardware Development Project (with Zenox Corporation)
vii. IT Proficiency Certification Program, with COAN;
viii.Telecommunication Proficiency through universal training (with NCC)
ix. Project IT Literacy (Publication of IT education material for K-12)
x. Nigerian IT Indigenization Policy (with both chambers of the house)
xi. IT Summer Exchange Program (with practitioners in Nigerian IT industries)

We noted that these are ongoing projects in some cases, project initiatives in other cases, and "wish-list" in a few cases. We hope to turn them all into concrete projects with our members engaged in each of them. We were very detailed in our description of scope, approach, expected results, constraints, and opportunities.

In response, Prof Isoun thanked us tremendously, and welcome NITPA's initiatives as a very critical element in the new Nigerian development dispensation. He presented to us his ministry's structure, goals, objectives and eagerness to leverage available human resources for effective science and technology development in Nigeria. He iterated the current movement in Nigeria to create a volunteer program to accord professionals in Diaspora the opportunity to take some time off, return home and engage themselves in a professional service of their choice for nation building. He added that the details are still being worked out and when completed, will be communicated to us. He further noted that there are three elements that must be in place for
effective development - personal capability, institutional capability and infrastructural capability. Nigerians, he said, have abundant personal capability, and the other two are now being put in place in Nigeria to allow for effective harnessing of the first element - Nigerians Personal capability.

We all agreed, and requested that NITPA be retained by his ministry (perhaps NITDA)to help in building the database of the Personal/professional capabilities of Nigerians in Diaspora which will serve as a spring board for providing required services in the country - including the voluntary services, and consulting opportunities we discussed earlier. He said that's a doable
project, and without making any commitments, his ministry will explore how to bring NITPA into such project, after consultations.

We concluded by agreeing to further explore many avenues for collaboration, starting with inviting Prof. Ola Ajayi, Executive Director of NITDA to our September 7 meeting in Washington DC. We handed the honorable minister an invitation letter for Prof Ajayi to join us in September and asked for his consent to that request.

We are grateful for the opportunity to carry out this discussion, and I must thank all our members who responded to this call for action in less than 24 hours. We look forward to great things as we seek for best ways to help develop our nation - technologically at least. If I missed any point, I call on my colleague to fill it in. Otherwise, please address all questions to me.

Best Wishes,
Manny C Aniebonam Ph.D