Vice-President receives Microsoft delegation
Vice president Kwesi Amissah-Arthur has asked Microsoft Corporation to support the government in the provision of employable skills to women and the disabled by offering them training in Information and Communications Technology (ICT).
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He stated that the use of ICT should not be limited to a few individuals but rather sections of the public who hitherto thought the digital age belonged to only the elite.
Mr Amissah-Arthur made the call when he received a seven-member delegation from Microsoft Corporation at the Flagstaff House yesterday.
The delegation was led by the Executive Vice-President of the Microsoft Corporation, Mr Brads Smith, and the Country Manager of the company, Mr Derrick Appiah.
ICT abuse
The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Mr Haruna Iddrisu; the Deputy Minister in charge of Tertiary Education, Mr Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa, and his counterpart from the Ministry of Communications, Mr Felix Kwakye-Ofosu, accompanied the team to the seat of government.
The Vice-President expressed concern that the youth who were supposed to use ICT to better themselves were rather using it for dubious purposes.
He said society was not getting the best use of technology because of the fact that the old who were expected to mentor and offer guidance to the youth in ICT were themselves incapable of making use of the facility.
“The youth need to be reoriented to take advantage of the digital age for best practices,” Mr Amissah-Arthur stated.
Employment minister
Mr Iddrisu said Ghana had one of the best ICT infrastructure in Africa with a good mobile fibre connectivity linkage but underscored the need to build a similar infrastructure in the western corridor to further bridge the technological gap in the country.
He sought Microsoft’s assistance for cloud services to help power the data centre by improving technology access to serve state agencies.
To deal with skills mismatch, the minister appealed to Microsoft to partner the new support scheme created for the youth to train students in tertiary institutions in ICT programmes.
Microsoft boss
Mr Smith told Mr Amissah-Arthur that the current technological trend was an exciting time for the country in particular and Africa at large.
He was full of praise for the government for extending broadband and bandwidth technology to most parts of Accra.
He stated that Microsoft had an employability component as part of its agenda to provide employable skills for the unemployed in their areas of operation.
Writer’s email: sebastian.syme4@yahoo.com