The South East world-class digital summit earlier scheduled to take place in Enugu today was postponed following the nationwide hunger protest on August 1.
The summit will now hold on September 19, the organizers have said.
The Chief Executive Officer of Michnet Concept International, organizers of the summit, Engr Mike Nebo, made the disclosure on Wednesday during a chat with newsmen in Awka.
The summit, is expected to convoke individuals, groups, students, governments, and representatives of every sector of the economy, including health, education, agriculture, tourism, finance, and communication, among others, with a view to educating, training, and empowering them with digital tools that would improve their efficiency.
It will feature lectures, breakout and interactive sessions, exhibitions, designed to birth opportunities for the development of technical solutions that would foster growth across sectors of the region’s economy.
Addressing journalists Wednesday, Engr Nebo said the postponement was to ensure that the summit yielded the desired result.
He said while they awaited the new date, they had consulted various state governments in the region, adding that their responses had been quite encouraging.
“The South East States’ Governments are excited about this summit because our coming to train their workforce will be a major plus for them, in terms of improving their efficiency.
“We want to commend the Governors for their efforts at leveraging technology to make a change in society,” he said.
Nebo, who spoke on the benefits of the summit, said it would expand into an online training where workers across the various states would be taken through course on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other technological packages.
“We are in partnership with a US group to see how participants can have a market to promote and sell their works.
“Following our engagement with the Enugu State Governor, Peter Mbah, we have started developing an e-commerce software that will help our people explore technology in business activities. We are also thinking of how to scale it to other states.
“This e-commerce software will help develop a comprehensive database of everyone in the state and to make online trading easy. Individuals, through the platform, can put in their products once they register and the backend people will identify what they need and purchase.
“It is important to note that this initiative comes on a zero-funding basis for the state governments. All they require is to provide the platform. We are not requesting money from the government to run the initiative.
“Although, we have private people running similar things as an enterprise, we believe that when the government comes fully with its platforms, we would be able to reach more people and achieve greater impact, ”Nebo noted.
The technology expert, who said tech companies in the region are now uniting to provide solutions to the ailing economy of the country and the region, noted that if the region and its governments could fully take advantage of the enablements of the ICT, the region would become a hub for technology in no distant time.
“This is not a summit for government alone. Yes, we need the collaboration of government, but the private sector has a crucial role to play,” he concluded.
On her part, the media consultant to Michnet Concepts, Mrs Ify Aronu-Okafor said the summit’s objective was to transform the South East region with digital technologies in diverse ways.
“Irrespective of what you do, there is a way you can plug in with the e-commerce software that is being developed and derive maximum benefits. This is because it was developed to create solutions across various spheres of human endeavour, ”she said.
On the postponement, Aronu-Okafor said the organizers decided to empathize with Nigerians over the hardship, adding that the shift also afforded them the opportunity to plan the summit better for the economic emancipation of the youths in the South East.
“Interested participants should visit www.southeastdigitalsummit.com and register for free. Then follow our YouTube channel.
“The summit will also be streamed live across all the states of the South East.
“For further inquiries, you can call 07069697730,” she disclosed.
