By Justina Auta
The National Centre for Women Development (NCWD) on Wednesday trained 80 females on cyber security, Artificial Intelligence (AI), among other topics, under its ICT and Mechatronics Skills Acquisition Programme.
The Director-General of the centre, Dr Asabe Vilita-Bashir, disclosed this during the closing ceremony of the skill acquisition programme in Abuja.
She said that the training would bridge the gender technology gap through innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship.
She added that the training was necessitated by the need to ensure gender mainstreaming technological activities, achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and enhance skills of young females in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).
She noted that the training was also in line with lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years.
She noted that “the graduates were exposed to various skills in ICT, mechatronics design and development, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, car engine architecture, diagnoses and troubleshooting of faults in cars.
“It is worthy to note that mechatronics specialists work in the fields of cyber security, telecommunications, computer science, automotive engineering, robotics, Artificial Intelligence and consumer products and packaging.”
The NCWD boss added that the graduates were also taught how they could access startup funds from CBN, Bank of Industry, among others, to enable them to succeed in their various careers.
She said each of the trained women would be given a brand new car diagnostic tool, a stipend for transportation, and a Trade Test 3 Certificate to enable them to perform well in the sector.
Morrison Udobong, the ICT Director, NCWD, said the 10-day training was aimed at educating the women, who were drawn from the 36 states of the federation in mechanical and electronic systems using computerised programming.
He said “what we did was to show the women different devices that have these technologies and how to design and build it.
“We were able to dismantle car engine and explain to the students how it works and relate it to mechatronics parts and diagnose fault using those devices.
“We also went beyond that on how to use Artificial Intelligence, machine learning in programming these devices.”
Some of the women said that the training had exposed them further to the potential inherent in the sector.
They added that it had challenged stereotypes, fought gender bias and gave them an insight on how to succeed in a male-dominated career, especially in diagnosing car faults, artificial intelligence and cyber security.
