Investment in ICT will create more entrepreneurs, billionaires —Zinox boss

With the right kind of investment in technological platforms and the overwhelming support of the government in providing the requisite enabling environment, Nigeria can effortlessly produce global billionaires from the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector.

This much was disclosed by the Chairman, Zinox Group, Mr Leo Stan Ekeh, in an interview with renowned media outfit, Cable News Network (CNN), which has received significant mention since it was first aired in the first week of January 2017.

Serial digital entrepreneur, Ekeh, who has built arguably Africa’s most integrated ICT conglomerate, the Zinox Group, is confident that with significant investment in ICT, the challenge of youth unemployment, inadequate opportunities and growing restiveness among the youth can be arrested.

According to him, for this to happen, however, the government has to actively engage the youths by investing massively in ICT which, in his opinion, has become the fancy of young people.

Ekeh is a firm believer in the numerous opportunities which abound in the rapidly evolving ICT-driven future – a knowledge economy in which wealth is no longer the exclusive preserve of a privileged few.

“The miracle of ICT is that it is the only profession in the world today that can make the child of a poor man the richest man in the world. The challenge, however, is that majority of our youths are in a closed community in which the standards are still poor, so they cannot exhibit their innate intellectual strength. As a result, they are seen as defeated and a lot of them are unemployed.

“We are doing our bit to correct this situation but government support will go a long way in helping the country achieve more. Presently, Zinox is building digital training centres and tech hubs across the country and empowering many of our youths.

We have also committed some significant investment in a number of tech start-ups. Recently, we invested in an Ibadan-based software company, Xputer. Interestingly, some of the apps being created by the young chaps at Xputer are driving the business processes of the major e-commerce outfits in the country. All they needed was a bit of exposure and support to help them scale up.