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| Abuja Nigeria |
The
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the National Information Technology
Development Agency (NITDA) and Zinox Technologies are collaborating with ICT
Publishers Alliance to build capacity in the use of modern ICT tools in news
processing and management.
The
collaboration is tied to a project that will help boost news management among
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Journalists across West Africa
as well as managers of information within government circle.
With the
increasing influence of social media in news delivery, stepped up challenges
faced by traditional media practitioners and broader need for engagement by
public/government information managers, the project will be focusing on the
thinning lines for information coverage, management and delivery.
The ICT
Publishers Alliance is coordinating the training as part of its goal of
empowering West African journalists in the use of modern ICT tools.
Chairman of
ICT Alliance Mr. Aaron Ukodie, who dropped the hint in Lagos recently, said
that developments in the ICT sector in form of vision and policy direction and
innovation, are moving in very fast pace and that journalists whose business it
is to report these trends and use these tools must be keep abreast of these
emerging trends and vision.
The capacity
building programme, which will draw journalists and other participants mainly
from Nigeria, Ghana, Benin Republic, Cote d'Ivoire, Sierra Leone, The Gambia,
Senegal and Togo, will take place from November 24 to November 27, 2012.\
The
Minister of Communications Technology Mrs. Omobola Johnson, is expected to
declare the event open. The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian
Communications Commission (NCC) Dr. Eugene Juwah, and Director-General of NITDA
Professor Cleopas Angaye and Chairman of Zinox Technologies, Leo Stan-Eke, are
to give key note addresses at the event.
The capacity
training will come in three modules spread across the three days. The various
subjects lined up for discussion will be handled by seasoned information managers,
social researchers, ICT experts and journalists versed in the areas of media
innovation and trends.
Some of the
sub topics to be handled include General Perspectives on Journalism and the
genre of ICT Reporting Citizen Journalism; Notions and Actualities: A plus or
minus for Professional ICT Reporting and National Development; The Fundamentals
of ICT Reporting and the demands of National Development; Can ICT Reporting
advance the cause of National Development? What is ICT4D and National
governments, National Institutions and the defining of ICT4D goals?
There are
also modules in Transparency, eGovernance and Legal Challenges in ICT
Reporting; Responsible Journalism and Nationalistic among others. There will be
various case studies drawn from Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal,South Africa, Tunisia,
United States of America etc. Legal frameworks in ICT4D and the challenges of
reporting online
Some of the
resource persons lined up for the programme include Professor Clement Dzedonu,
Consultant to the ECA on ICT4D and Vice Chancellor of AIT University, Accra,
Ghana and Nseobong Akpan, Technology Columnist and Chief Consultant, Technology
Law Firm, Abuja. Others include Professor Kim Viborg Andersen, Department of IT
Management (ITM) and researcher in organisational and policy aspects of IT,
Copenhagen Business School, Denmark and Basil Udotai, Legal Adviser to Chief Security
Officer to the president of Nigeria on Cybercrime and Professor Steve Woolgar,
Professor of Marketing and Head of the Science and Technology at Said Business
School at the University of Oxford.
THISDAY
Nigeria