The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has launched an innovation hub for National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members with the aim of pooling them out of the labour market and transforming them to technology‑driven entrepreneurs and solution providers, as Nigeria continues to grapple with rising youth unemployment rate.
The innovation hub, known as the NITDA Innovation Space, was officially commissioned at the agency’s headquarters in Abuja.
Speaking during the hub launching event, the Director‑General of NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa, said the initiative was designed to respond to the realities of a changing global economy, where digital skills and innovation now determine employability and economic relevance.
The Director-General explained: “The world is changing fast. Many of the jobs we see today did not exist decades ago. If you want to succeed, you must build relevant skills and have a clear career strategy.
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“Our goal is simple: before you leave here, you should either have built a business or created something valuable enough to earn you a place in the ecosystem.
“You need to have the skills that will help you succeed wherever you find yourself in life. And secondly, you need to have a good career plan. A good career plan is something that can answer big questions like ‘Where do you want to be in the next few years?’ And many of us, we don’t think about this”, he added.
Speaking on his personal experience, Inuwa recalled how a voluntary project during his own service year in 2004, where he built a website using his NYSC allowance, earned him a N1.5 million contract and launched his professional journey.
He charged the corps members: “You need to create visibility. If you stand out, you don’t have to ask for jobs,” he added.
In his remarks, the Director‑General of the National Youth Service Corps, Brigadier General Olakunle Nafiu, described the initiative as a model for national development and youth empowerment.
According to him, the NYSC management don’t just post corps members for service but post them to add value and to be developed.
Noting that what is happening at NITDA is exactly what the country needs, Nafiu commended the corps members for presenting market‑ready digital solutions and said the experience reinforced the relevance of the NYSC scheme in a technology‑driven era.
He said: “The future of this country is here with these youths; we are going back with stories that at NITDA, they are not just accepting corps members; they are transforming them into better Nigerians.”
The Director-General also disclosed that the NYSC was undergoing its own digital transformation and that from the 2026 Batch A Stream One, the scheme had fully digitised its ID card system, enabling corps members to access their identification through digital dashboards.
He expressed interest in adopting a Place of Primary Assignment (PPA) verification and management solution developed by corps members at NITDA and called for formal collaboration between both agencies to integrate the technology nationwide.
Impressed by the outcomes of the Idea to Impact programme, the NYSC Director‑General urged Ministries, Departments and Agencies to move beyond routine postings and begin to treat corps members as contributors to national solutions. “The youths we deploy are not just serving; they are solution providers,” he said.
During the event, corps members demonstrated functional digital solutions, including NITDA Smart ID Management by Team Sentinel and Trivergent, and the NYSC Corps360 (COPA App) by Team COPA. The solutions are designed to improve identity management, service coordination, and operational efficiency within the NYSC scheme.
While speaking with one of the innovators a former NITDA corp member, Ruth Owana‑Jack, said her team developed the Smart ID System, describing it as “a secure and unified digital identity solution designed for modern institutions.”
She explained that the idea emerged from observing how identities are managed across organisations, noting that “identity cards cannot be updated in real time, which leads to constant reprinting”, while staff are often forced to carry multiple cards, with limited tracking of staff data and growing concerns around security, privacy and what she termed “identity immobility.”
According to her, the Smart ID System addresses these challenges by consolidating identity management into a single platform.
Owana-Jack said: “Our solution is a seamless Smart ID system that combines a mobile application, a web application, and a unified card that supports NFC for instant digital sharing”, adding that the system allows for “one card for all purposes: secure identification, real‑time updates, and seamless interaction within and across organisations.”
