The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, has met with representatives of Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (Space X), the World Bank Group and Google Corporation to seek their support for the Federal Government’s efforts in the development of Nigeria’s digital economy.
While the minister’s meeting with the World Bank and Google were held on the sidelines of the US-Africa Leaders’ Forum (USALF), in Washington D.C, United States of America, his parley with Space X management was held in California as a follow up to the events at the USALF.
At Space X, the management discussed with Pantami on how Space X could expand its presence in Nigeria, following their entry into the Nigerian market through the Starlink broadband service. At the meeting, the Minister advised the Space X team to consider sourcing some of its engineers from Nigeria’s digital talent pool.
On the invitation of the World Bank Group, the Minister had a meeting with top officials of the Bank, including Vyjayanti Desai, the Practice Manager for the World Bank’s Identification for Development (ID4D) and Digitizing Government to Person Payments (G2Px) Programmes.
The Breton Woods institution’s leadership commended the Nigerian government’s initiatives which have continued to make significant impact on Nigeria’s digital economy sector even as the parties discussed how the bank could further partner with Nigeria to strengthen the digital economy ecosystem in areas of infrastructure, skilling, cybersecurity, and digital identity.
During the Nigerian minister’s meeting with Vice-President, Government Affairs, and Public Policy at Google Inc, Karan Bhatia, discussions were held on the company’s growing focus on Africa.
At the meeting Bhatia said that the company was looking forward to expanding partnerships with Nigeria in areas such as skilling, cybersecurity, and cloud computing, among others.
