FG opens applications for 3 million technical talent program

The Federal Government has opened applications for the first phase of the 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) program.

The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, opened the application portal for the program on Friday.

According to him, the program, a critical part of the Renewed Hope agenda, is aimed at building Nigeria’s technical talent backbone to power its digital economy and position Nigeria as a net talent exporter.

He said the first phase of the program, executed in collaboration with NITDA, will involve multiple stakeholders including fellows, training providers, partners, and placement organizations.

In the first phase, he said the government would We will select individuals with an interest in specific skills and fund the cost of their training with training providers accepted into the program.

The first 30,000 to be trained

Highlighting how the first phase of the program will run, the Minister stated:

“In line with the Ministry’s 1%-10%-100% implementation approach, this first phase will aim to train and place 30,000 technical talents, representing 1% of our overall target. It will be executed based on the framework co-created with key stakeholders across government agencies, training providers, educational institutions, development agencies, and the private sector.”

According to the Minister, some of the skills Nigerians would be trained on in the first phase are skills that utilise technology to enhance various roles without directly involving tech creation.

These include Digital Marketing, Project Management Software, Cloud Platforms Navigation, Data Analysis and Visualisation, Digital Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), CRM Management, Accounting Software, Graphics Design, and UX/UI Design, among several others.

Implementation phases

Earlier, Tijani in an implementation document released on Thursday said the Ministry would be adopting the “1%-10%100% Implementation Rule”.

According to him, this rule is a guide to ensure a high success rate of the program and gives the Ministry a way to reduce the cost of quality on all its initiatives before scaling to the wider population.

Explaining the rule and how it will be applied to the project, Tijani said the “1%-10%-100% Implementation Rule” is a framework that posits that the program starts small and gradually increases the scope as the projects progress.

He added that the number 1 in the mechanism denotes “Prototyping”, number 10 denotes “Piloting”, while number 100 denotes “Scaling”.

Nigerians interested in participating in the training program can apply here