General Electric (GE), a digital industrial company in its bid to address the over eight million technical skills gap in critical sectors of the Nigerian economy,has announced the successful training of 141 Nigerian entrepreneurs on advanced manufacturing and business development skills.
GE Africa Communications and Public Affairs Director, Patricia Obozuwa, disclosed this in during a ceremony to mark one-year operation of GE Lagos Garage which is a hub for advanced manufacturing-based innovation, strategy development, idea generation and collaboration with public and private stakeholders.
“These advanced technologies are new globally and in the same way that Nigerians have crossed the whole traditional telecommunications system and moved straight to mobile phones and adopted it in a big way, we anticipate that Nigerians will embrace these advanced manufacturing technologies and become immediately competitive globally.” said Obozuwa
Lazarus Angbazo CEO, GE Nigeria, noted that the skills of a nation’s citizens determine the quality of its infrastructure and speed of advancement.
“When the level of available skill does not match the requirements for building new infrastructure or maintaining existing ones, the country must make investments and create roles to put its people back on the path of progress.” He said.
GE had recently launched a whitepaper titled ‘The Future of Work in Nigeria- Bridging the Skills Gap’ where the need for both the public and private sector to come together to ensure that the education system- from traditional structures to vocational and new approaches are producing the necessary skills for the country’s current needs while anticipating its skills needs in the future.
The establishment of the garage was a fall-out of the World Economic Forum to help build a skilled workforce and also drive entrepreneurial development of the country.
The Lagos Garage, launched in 2016, offers a year-round series of skills training programs focused on building the next generation of Nigerian entrepreneurs. The Garage was designed to complement the Federal Government on local content policy and job creation drive.
