Covenant University has further lifted the hope of a brighter future for Nigeria and the continent of Africa in the quest to bridge the digital divide between African countries and the developed countries of the world.
This followed the achievement recently by the undergraduates of the University as International Sun Java Certified Programmers.

This is coming in less than 4 months of the commencement of an IT Training Partnership between the University and New Horizons (an international IT Training Company)
According to the results, the students that were formally presented for the examination recorded 100 per cent success rate. The average score of the students in the examination was 75 per cent as compared to 59 per cent, which is the international official pass mark for Sun Java certification

examination. On their part, the students whose ages rank between 17 and 19 years expressed their joy at having become IT professionals when they are still in school and were elated that their future is already getting brighter.

While commenting on the landmark achievement, Tim Akano, Managing Director of New Horizons said with this form of excellence, the Total Man Concept being pursued by the University is further boosted as the products from the University now combine moral integrity, academic excellence and IT professionalism.

He said all of these will equip them with attributes and skills that will make them to be highly employable by international and local employers as well as make those of them with entrepreneurial spirit become wealth creators

immediately after graduation. He stated that the students were coached with world-class contents and facilities, which are the hallmark of New Horizons Brand in all the 60 countries of the world where it operates.

The Partnership between the University and New Horizons involves installation of international standard Computer laboratory and deployment of contents on International IT Certifications Courses by New Horizons such that the undergraduates will be able to acquire a minimum of four International IT Certifications in addition to their academic degrees before graduating from the University.

A 500 level undergraduate of the University, Timi Soyele, who had earlier qualified in Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) and Certified Hacker Forensic Investigator (CHFI) and Linux Security through New Horizons, had secured employment as an IT Security Consultant even while still in school.

The Information Technology Association of Nigeria has said it is committed to seeing that IT curricula are introduced into the country's primary and secondary schools.
President of the association, Jimson Olufuye, who stated this at a press conference, said this explained the basis for the association's ongoing IT enlightenment project, tagged, 'IT Future 2007'.

Olufuye remarked that the body decided to bring the initiative into further public knowledge in a bid to sustain its policy of ensuring adequate IT penetration in all facets of Nigerian life, particularly in governance, education and commerce.

ITAN he noted was collaborating with organisations like the Nigerian Computer Society, Computer Professionals Registration Council of Nigeria and other stakeholders, “with the hope of realizing the Nigeria of our dream by the year 2020 and beyond.”

He expressed ITAN's concern over the recent consolidation of ministries by the past administration and the effects of such actions on IT in the country, restating the association's position on the renaming of the current Ministry of Information and Communication as Ministry of Information Technology.

Olufuye expressed the association's desire for a Computer in Schools Task Force that would ensure the deployment of computers with appropriate software tools to all primary and secondary schools in the country.

Lee Armstrong, the astronaut, the first man that went to the moon, and two other contemporaries. They were in the school talking about space exploration. I was in that school to study Medicine. After their presentation which showed us the landing on the moon, I was shocked to see that we can transfer information from the moon to the earth, not just words but pictures and it can be watched live on earth.

To me who was very young, I had to ask them a curious question about how that was possible and we were told then that it was because of a machine called computer.

of a sudden, the same informationcan come to earth in milli-seconds then, this machine must be fantastic. And one day, the whole world will be connected; that was how my mind came into IMS. I told my dad I didn't want to study Medicine anymore that I wanted to study Computer Engineering or Computer Science.

I had asked Lee Armstrong some questions about the machine called computer and how it works. And he said that I have to be a good mathematician. Since my best subject was Mathematics, I said no problem. The man laughed because in his mind, this was a young man who was just starting. I knew that I could do this very well because if the whole world could be getting information and you are at the centre of it, you can live, or succeed or make a difference.

So, that was how I embarked on studying Computer Science and I asked the Astronaut where one has to go to study because I actually wanted to study to become an Astronaut. But the man said if you want to do that, you would have to go to one of the best schools in the United States of America and after you have studied computer, you can study Aeronautic Engineering, before you will be able to go to Space.

We have about five centres situated in different parts of Lagos such as, Ikeja, Ojuelegba, Yaba, Idi-Oro, and Palmgroove. It's not that we do not want to have centres outside Lagos but if you are aiming at quality then, you must supervise very well. It's a long journey and we have just started.

The challenge of competition
If you are good and you know your onions; if you understand the customer very well, you will survive. As a Nigerian who has studied in the United States, I went to school with people from different walks of life such as Americans, Indians, Japanese, French; I was always number one in my mathematics class. So there is nothing called Indians or Asians on my mind.

It was a challenge, when we started the company. At that time, we were into hardware assembling, engineering, consultancy, training corporate entities as far as Abuja. Overtime, we realized that the Nigerian system was not ready to help the masses so, that led us to open IMS Computer Training School. We have done so many things in the past; we have clients across Africa and we train at higher institutions.

Competence of Resource persons
When someone comes to your organization, no matter how professional he is, even if he has a PhD, you will first train and orient that person so that he can know the corporate structure under which he will be working. Specifically, this company stands for one thing, which is that we are more people- oriented than others.
We think of people as humans who wake up everyday and are looking for something to add value to their lives and we stand here to do that. We believe that when someone comes in here, there is something missing that he wants to add value to. So, every person including our resource person knows that is our goal; customer satisfaction is the key.

I am not very concerned about Some body being highly educated; the most important thing is getting the job done and doing it so well that the customer leaves here happy. At the management level, we do a thorough job of making sure that is ensured by doing things like appraisal for our employees.

Every student that comes into this school knows the appraisal of his instructor. But some of the resource persons think that the customer is too powerful, and I always tell them that the person who pays your salary is your boss, so you better listen to him.

Even though they are children, they still have a lot of power because if they are not here then, we cannot continue to do business. So each of the resource persons has to understand this right from the first day. There is no brother or sister when it comes to business.
Courses and job prospects
We offer different courses because if you look at the concept of IMS Computer Training School, it is assumed from the first day that you don't know anything. General computing is a basic course, and we have also a course

called Career Pack. When you come in, you can go into general computing and move into more advanced courses. And once you have done general computing, you can move into advanced courses like CMA, Oracle, and you can take any other Microsoft certified courses that you want to take.

The job prospect is very great because we have something unusual that we do at the school. We tend to have our students go and spend some time outside and see how they can affect the community. So, they are challenged to go to small shops, talk about computer to them, and see how they can assist.

They do a little package and recommend it to the area where they did the research as to how computer can help them. This particular activity enables the students to take all the knowledge they have gathered and design something for them.

They choose a company such as Guinness; hospitals, to keep track of their patient records, and they can go to Coca Cola and keep track of their inventory by using the knowledge they have.
This helps the students in creating rather than to just master the knowledge, and gives them the chance to be able to design. This gives the management time to grade the students during their project defense.

Comparative advantage
We are technology biased, we tend to hire very brilliant resource fellows and we also train our staff on a regular basis. We have an appraisal network for our employees so, this made management strong and you know as a formal IBM man, I have a lot of test skills that I use to manage the company.

Competition wise, the future is bright because you can exist for 20 years, as long as you continue to do the same thing, like they say, if it doesn't break, don't fix it. We have used it and it worked so we will just continue to use that and improve on it.

Our customer service ability is another key. I believe that Nigerians do not know what customer service is all about. If you go under the bridge, you will understand what I am talking about, they will abuse you because you are bargaining too much.

Contributing to nation's ICT development
I don't think I need to make so much noise about IMS, because things speak for themselves. As far as I know, IMS has graduated about 2000 people in the last ten years. IMS was a consultant to National War College in Abuja for several years. We were also a consultant to the Navy and many other institutions and agencies; so, we have really impacted and changed the lives of many people.

We have a special programme today called the Mayflower programme where young people who are the best in their class are put together under a scholarship programme, and are offered advanced courses like Oracle, CCME for free. IMS as a company is also a member of the Police Community Relations Committee.

What the future holds for us
IMS will be here by the grace of God; our goal is to affect the community positively. The computer level on its own has its impact level, and I am not saying that it is comparable to university level. Where we are today in Nigeria is where we were in the United States in 1976; most of the courses we teach here today are the courses that I did when I was a fresh man in the University.

No doubt, we have a long way to go in Nigeria.
As the community becomes more learned, we tend to want to go to the next level and educate them; that is the strategy of IMS. We are not fashioning ourselves after what is going on in the world today. We can't say because there is WiMAX, then we start to teach it; Nigeria is not ready for that.

that though the project is being monitored in Nigeria by United Nations Information Center (UNIC), it is however coordinated by three local NGOs which include Youth Action Rangers of Nigeria, Professional Leaders Forum and The Chris Ogunbanjo Foundation.
“What we do basically at UNITeS is that we encourage some kind of shift by changing people's mindset from job seekers to social entrepreneurs.”

Lewis said the UN agency's target market is the young. “Our main focus is young people between 18 and 24years in line with the Nigerian context. However, to every general rule, there are exceptions because from then till date, we have trained a lot of participants. And I can beat my chest and tell you that about 65 per cent of them are actually between 18 and 35years.”

He explained further, “there are many phases to UNITeS, and unfortunately, the ICT for development and digital divide does not just affect young people, it affects everybody; even if our main concern is the youth, it does not mean that we will neglect the older ones. Though we have not started yet, we hope to have a refresher course for workers.”

Lewis stated that before students are allowed into the training programme of the agency; they would have had an IT proficiency test after which successful students are allowed into the programme.
“If they are successful in the test, they are inducted into our programme; those who are not, we ask them to go through our Microsoft office programme”, adding that “in the course of the course of the training, apart from

institutes, to get their computer knowledge; we will give to them for as low as N6, 500 for the cost of their manuals, certificates, attendance, etc; it doesn't cut into the training at all.” To further stress the importance of ICT to national development, Lewis said UNITeS Nigeria in conjunction with Cisco Nigeria will be organizing a conference in November.

“The conference will attract major IT firms, technocrats, educators, international development agencies, policy makers, private companies, public corporations, youth organizations, advocates, the mass media, international media executives and young entrepreneurs to learn, inform, and deliberate on the way forward for ICT development in Nigeria.

“The conference will also provide a platform to discuss youth participation in national development and the challenge of providing quality and affordable IT education in Nigeria.”
Explaining the problems that are paramount to Nigeria's ICT development, the web developer observed, “The truth is that there are three major problems confronting the development of ICT and the effort at bridging the divide in Nigeria. Firstly, there is access, which is lack of information; the information is not disseminated well. Second is penetration that is getting the development to those that actually need it. And of course, local content development, which has to do with getting the problem solved in a way that they will understand it.”

On job prospects for students after their training, Lewis said that when a student comes into the programme, he is taught how to develop and design a website and during the design of the site, he must have interacted at some level with people that have solved similar problems elsewhere.

He adds, “Let's say your solution is practicable in the Nigerian sense, that is not proffering some expensive solutions to something very small; and in the course of designing your website, you design something really good, a kind of message board is built and people that have problems will come to you.”

On the future of UNITeS in Nigeria, Lewis stated rather confidently, “I see a UNITeS that has a presence in every other NYSC camp because statistics today reveal that the IT proficiency level of our graduates is low. In US for instance, about 9 per cent of college graduates are IT proficient while in Nigeria it is just 3 per cent.
“We will also set up a UNITeS club at various universities and secondary schools. So, people can come and we will offer our services to them at no cost or charge.”

When asked if UNITeS has partnership with local IT training institute, Lewis noted that UNITeS Nigeria does not have centers at the moment as a result, it uses the facilities of other solution providers. “Some of our students are from the University of Lagos whom we have a partnership with, Yaba College of Education as well as Entrepreneur Development Services (EDS).”

Though the United Nations programme is operating only in Lagos at the moment, Lewis believes that UNITeS own training should have more centers scattered across Nigeria before the end of second quarter of next year.
“The major problem in ICT for development is access and local content. We hope to have a UNITeS onestop research centre very soon.

This centre is basically into local content development. For instance, if one of our participants develops a Microsoft office in our local language of Yoruba, Hausa, or Igbo, we will take this down to the grassroots level. So it is not just about training those that already have the basic knowledge”, Lewis concludes.