By Our Correspondent
Prof. Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy has met with world-leading communication technology stakeholders in Washington, in a bid to strengthen partnerships for the development of Nigeria’s economy.
This is contained in a statement issued by Reuben Muoka, Director of Public Affairs at the Nigerian Communications Commission and e-mailed to The NewsZenith on Sunday.
The meetings were on the sidelines of the US-Africa Leaders’ Forum (USALF), which took place in Washington-DC, U.S.
The meetings include the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (Space X) in California and the World Bank Headquarters.
Pantami also met with the Google Corporation team as a follow-up to the events at the USALF.
He was received at Space X by Samuel (Chad) Gibbs IV, the Vice President of Business Operations, on behalf of Elon Musk, Founder and CEO of Space X.
At the meeting, both parties discussed how Space X can expand its presence in Nigeria, following its entry into the Nigerian market through the Starlink broadband service.
He also asked the Space X team to consider sourcing some of its engineers from Nigeria’s digital talent pool.
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During the visit, the Minister’s team toured the SpaceX Rocket manufacturing, Starlink assembly line and product development Facilities.
He also witnessed the live Space X rocket launch of two telecom satellites into orbit.
On the invitation of the World Bank Group, Pantami met with its top officials led by Vyjayanti Desai.
Desai is the Practice Manager for the World Bank’s Identification for Development (ID4D) and Digitizing Government to Person Payments (G2Px) Programmes.
The World Bank team commended Pantami for his leadership, which has led to significant development in Nigeria’s digital economy.
The meeting discussed how the bank could further partner with Nigeria to strengthen its digital ecosystem.
The discussion focused on areas of infrastructure, skilling, cybersecurity and digital identity.
Also, the minister met with Karan Bhatia, Vice-President of Government Affairs and Public Policy at Google.
Bhatia eulogised the minister for significant progress that has transformed Nigeria’s digital economy.
He also commended Pantami for initiating the Nigeria Startup Act.
According to him, the legislation would serve as a catalyst for the rapid development of entrepreneurial ecosystem in Nigeria and Africa.
He discussed the company’s growing focus on Africa.
He said Google “looks forward to expanding partnerships with Nigeria in skilling, cybersecurity and cloud computing among others”.
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