20,000 youths storm New Horizons fair-08

Estimated 20,000 Nigerian youths stormed venues of the New Horizons Information Technology Job fair where they received Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) empowerment, in three cities.

The seminar which took place penultimate Saturday, was the second edition of the New Horizons IT/Job fair held recently in Lagos, Ibadan and Abeokuta respectively.

The event which attracted top IT professionals in the world, including the President of EC-Council University, USA, Mr. Sanjay Bavisi and his Vice-President, Mr. Sean Lim, was described as a success.

EC Council University is an Information Security training institute with branches in over 60 countries of the world with headquarters based in the United States (US).

Speaking at the Lagos leg of the event, Mr. Bavisi said that Nigeria needs about 6,000 qualified Licensed Penetration Testers (LPTs) and right now, we have only one in the country.

Thus moving Mr. Bavisi to offer conditional scholarships to the tune of $44,000 to outstanding students that pass a pre-registration test and meets basic requirements.

A similar gesture was made earlier, at Covenant University two days before then with a conditional scholarship worth $22,000 to be awarded to one gifted student that registered for courses in the EC-Council University at the Covenant University, Otta.

The result of this particular session was that more than a thousand youths immediately indicated interest in Information Security and Master of Security Science programmes under the EC- Council University curriculum.

The event held at the Indoor Sports Hall of the National Stadium, Surulere, Cultural Centre, Abeokuta and CBN Hall, Faculty of Sciences, University of Ibadan, respectively, also saw the Managing Director, New Horizons Systems Solutions, Mr. Tim Akano, informing the participants on the importance of being ICT literate and compliant in a rapidly developing world where globalization and IT security which is fast becoming the norm.

He further said that the numerous ICT certification courses available and directly at the disposal of scholars and professionals alike and enjoined them to register at the fair.

As a result, majority of the participants came out more determined to pursue various IT certifications to enhance their marketability such as EC-Council Security Track and e-business track, Microsoft, CISCO, Oracle, Java, to mention a few.

“The future is brighter and clearer for Nigeria, when the right people get quality service and value for money under an unbiased and transparent environment where IT training is offered by competent and highly skilled professionals delivering first grade training materials to students,” he said.

The seminar, he said, is part of the New Horizons overall strategy of repositioning Nigeria for the attainment of President’s Yar’Adua vision 20 – 2020.

ITRealms Online recalled that New Horizons had earlier trained dozens of uniformed men in the Police, Immigrations and Customs in August this year free of charge to make them vision 2020 complaint.

Equally in attendance were the Country Manager at Microsoft Nigeria, Mr. Emmanuel Onyeje, who spoke on the power of Microsoft Development platform, pointed out what it means and how it would help youths and corporate businesses to become entrepreneurs of successful business in Nigeria.

Others were representatives of Cisco Academy, recruitment agencies like People Prime, Clement Ashley, Iris Consulting and Money Wise consulting.


ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D