Home IT/Telecom Nigeria set to hold smart cities summit
IT/Telecom - May 15, 2017

Nigeria set to hold smart cities summit

The Minister of Communications, Mr Adebayo Shittu, says Nigeria is set to hold a smart cities summit in June as part of efforts by the Federal Government to develop ICT sector in the country.

Shittu disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sideline of the Transform Africa Summit held in Kigali, Rwanda, an ICT conference focused on development of smart cities.

The minister, who said the plan was to replicate the unparalleled ICT transformation of Rwanda in Nigeria, said the “Smart Cities Nigeria 2017 Summit” was scheduled for June 28 and 29.

NAN reports that a smart city is an urban development vision to integrate in ICT and Internet of Things (IoT) technology in a secure fashion to manage a city’s assets

The initiative aims at leveraging technology solutions to improve efficiency of cities.

Rwanda which is spearheading the initiative has rolled out a number of developments such as WiFi in public areas, including public transport vehicles, as well as cashless payment systems in public transport.

Currently, the initiative is backed by 18 African countries while more nations including Nigeria are expected to join.

While explaining further on the Smart Cities Summit, Shittu said though Nigeria was starting late but steadily.

“I will say that we have some delays within the government operations we ought to have unleashed some of these ideas in the Nigerian scene more than eight months ago,” Shittu said.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *