The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isah Pantami, disclosed this during the International Conference on Computing and Advances in Information Technology, organised by Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria on Tuesday.
The three-day conference, which was organised by the Department of Computer Science of the institution, has “Fostering Digital Economy Through Recent Trends in Information Technology’’ as its theme.
To achieve this, the minister said he directed the NCC to come up with research grants that would be given to higher institutions to take part in research on emerging technology.
He said there was a meeting about three weeks ago to review proposals sent by academics in order to see how the Federal Government would support them with research grants in the area of emerging technologies.
According to Pantami, there is a research grant under the National Information Technology Development Agency, where the Federal Government sponsors young academics to higher institutions abroad.
He said all these initiatives were to support the digital economy of the country.
The minister noted that according to the world economic forum, as at 2016, the global contributions of ICT to economic development stands at 16 per cent, and the figure has been predicted to reach 50 per cent by 2022.
Source : https://www.pulse.ng/business/fg-directs-ncc-to-issue-research-grants-on-artificial-intelligence/6x9m2b6.amp