Experts at the NIBSS developers’ hangout, an initiative of the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System, have called on the Federal Government to look at elements that will help develop the software industry.
They see the software industry as significant because it impacts on every aspect of the society, adding that efforts should be focused on how to grow the sector.
“As an industry we must play significant role in the development of our economy because software is labour intensive. To raise community of developers, we need a little help from the Federal Government”, Pius Okigbo, president, Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) said at a forum organized by NIBSS in Lagos.
He said every government that needs to establish software industry must come up with the right policy. However, he noted that the government in response to the needs of the industry created the ministry of technology, adding that he was part of the conceptualization of ‘Incubator’, a programme for software community that has brought a lot of young start up into the industry.
“We must be fundamentally part of software literature workforce. The future is software”, Okigbo said at the forum.
Speaking to journalist at the event, Ade Shonubi, managing director, NIBSS said “We feel that there is a big market and opportunity for local developers to have applications that are tailored to our environment”.
He was concerned that there are a lot of applications that are brought in to Nigeria that do well but not excellently because they do not understand particular needs and want.
Shonubi said the forum was to encourage the young software developers, to tell them what is possible and how they can take advantage of NIBSS products.
“The first forum was very successful. We got a lot of feedback from which will be incorporated into this event. There were a lot of information they wanted that we provided and for the first time we are giving them online access to develop and taste the applications that they may have”, he said.
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