NITDA,Co-Creation Hub Update IT Talent Analysis

The 2016 Technology Talent Gap Analysis has been upgraded into a National Technology Talent Gap Analysis Research 2022 by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and Co-Creation Hub (CcHUB).

This was stated on Thursday in a joint statement released in Abuja by Muhammad Eyinfunjowo, Senior Communications Manager, and Hadiza Umar, Head of Corporate Affairs and External Relations of NITDA.

The new report, which contains data and insights and a more rigorous research methodology, shows the shift in the demand and supply for technical talent since the previous study.

 “This research will give us great insights into the knowledge gaps that have been identified and will help us make better decisions on technology talent gap acceleration in Nigeria, said Mallam Kashifu Inuwa,” the Director-General of NITDA stated.

Also, Bosan Tijani, Chief Executive Officer of CcHUB, said they are excited to be working with NITDA again on the research, as they will further curate useful insights on the technology talent demand and supply in Nigeria.

Tijani explained that Nigeria’s technology ecosystem had expanded over the past decade, resulting in a shortage of expertise.

“With a population of over 200 million and a staggering unemployment rate of 33.3 per cent one out of every three Nigerians who are able and eager to work are unemployed,” he said.

Tijani said that the research, which was a National Multi-Stakeholder Research Project, involved a thorough investigation conducted into the gaps and potential that could be brought to the forefront in Nigeria.

According to him, the shortage of literature on particular technological skills deficiencies in the Nigerian IT sector was one of the gaps and possibilities.

“This is an excellent opportunity for this study to define the key and specialised technology talent in Nigeria, and their supply and demand projections.

“Also, most Nigerian institutions of higher education have an incomplete grasp of the impact of technology education programmes.

“This is an opportunity for the study to gather feedback on the impact from study participants, particularly students,” she said.

Tijani added that the 2022 study will apply a descriptive research approach and triangulation of data, among other strategies.

“The quantitative method intends to collect data from practising technology developers and university undergraduates in technology, computer science, and other relevant subjects.

“While the qualitative will collect data from Universities, technology talent headhunters, Polytechnics, organisations heavily dependent on technology talents, development partners, foreign tech-talent recruiters, government parastatals, and alternative technology education platforms.

“In addition, the research will analyse previous publications on technological talent and technology skills in Nigeria to get a broad understanding of the topic under investigation and supplement the aforementioned methodologies.

“Finally, the research will also collect public opinion on the topic of the supply and demand for IT talent in Nigeria employing pre-planned tweets relating to poaching,” he said.

She added that a multi-stage sampling process was used to determine the sample size in the study, which used Cochran's methodology.

Tijani claims that data will be acquired from 1,330 samples collected from all industries.

In order to hasten the use of social capital and technology for economic prosperity, CcHUB established Nigeria's first public living lab in 2010. Participants included technologists, entrepreneurs, tech companies, investors, and hackers.