THE Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) on Monday launched the First Nigerian School of Community Networks for Micro-organisations, a statement by CITAD has disclosed.
The launch is part of the Work Package 2 of the Supporting Community-led Approach towards addressing digital divide in Nigeria Project which CITAD is implementing with support from Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) through Association for Progressive Communication (APC).
According to the statement, the aim of the project is to connect the unconnected areas in Nigeria where conventional market players find it unprofitable to deploy their networks and the purpose of the School of Community Networks is to build capacity of community based organisations called the micro-organisation who are working to deploy community networks in their communities to meet local communication needs.
At the opening ceremony on day one of the school, which held at Stonehegde Hotel, Kaduna, a number of speakers gave goodwill messages to the participants.
In his opening remarks, the Executive Director of CITAD, Engr. Y.Z. Ya’u, while giving the background of the project ran down a list of the activities that CITAD has been doing over the last two years, culminating with the School.
According to Engr. Ya’u, over the last two years, CITAD had been working tirelessly to catalyse the emergence of community networks in Nigeria, given that there has been no policy to guide the growth and flourishing of the of community networks.
He said CITAD took steps to engage with policymakers and regulators in the sector such as Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Ministry of Communications as well as other relevant agencies to ensure that an appropriate policy is developed for community networks in the country.
The Executive Director also stated that part of the objective of the school is to train champions with technical skills on how they can design, deploy and manage community networks.
“The school will hold in two phases, the phase one is an intensive physical one-week residential training which starts today, followed by four-month online training which is part of the phase two activities,” the statement quoted Ya’u as stating, as he noted the efforts made by CITAD to engage policymakers on the need for community network policy.
He called on both the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Prof. Isah Pantami, and the management of NCC to honour the promises they made about setting up the processes to develop a national policy on community networks for the country. He said this is urgent because at the moment more than 88 million Nigerians remain unconnected and excluded from the benefits of digital technology.
In their goodwill messages, the Executive Director of Fanstuam Foundation, Mrs Comfort Kazanka, the National Coordinator of Alliance for Affordable Internet, Mr. Olusola Taniola, and the immediate past COO of Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA), Mrs Edith Udeagu, all expressed their gratitude for being part of the project as well as advising the participants to be good ambassadors of their communities by applying the knowledge gained.
Mrs Kazanka stated that the School of Community Networks be turned into either an institute for community networks or a specialised university.
On his part Mr. Taniola said his organisation was ready to join hands with CITAD to push the advocacy for a national policy on community networks in the country, while Mrs Udeagu, who presented her goodwill message on her personal capacity, expressed happiness that the National School of Community Networks was providing the opportunity for all to learn and share knowledge.
“We thank CITAD, its CEO, Mr. YZ Ya’u and team and its partners for providing this opportunity for all and pray for its success. I say congratulations to CITAD. I congratulate its partners and contributors for their participation. In this country, we need to address the issues of digital divide. People in various communities face various challenges. We need to assist as much as possible to address these issues and give them the opportunities to better their lives,” Mrs Udeagu stressed.
The keynote address was given by the Managing Director of Galaxy Backbone, represented by Mr Abdulmalik Suleman, staff of the company. He stated that one of the objectives of Galaxy Backbone is to help in connecting the underserved communities. He commended CITAD for embarking on this project, noting that it was not an easy thing to do.
He disclosed that Galaxy Backbone is currently implementing the second phase of the National Information Communication Infrastructure Backbone (NICTIB) which he said would provide access to backbone across the country. He welcomed communities to take advantage of this in their plans for their community networks.
He also appreciated the effort of CITAD for setting up the School of Community Networks, which according to Galaxy Backbone is another important step that will help strengthen the impact of shared internet experience and shared Network in our Nation.
The Nigerian School of Community Networks is the first attempt in the country to build local skills and expertise for the organic development of grassroots telecommunications infrastructure in the country. Community networks is a telecommunications infrastructure deployed and operated by a local group to meet their own communication needs and also a communications infrastructure, designed and erected to be managed for use by local communities. This communication needs can be voice, data, etc. and can be point of convergence for community to come together to address their common community problems.
