By Nyuiemedi Seraphine
The Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) has trained over 240 people in digital literacy skills in the Volta Region under its 4th cohort of the Digital Transformation Centres Project (DTC).
The training was organised in collaboration with the International Telecommunications Union, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), and Cisco.
The Chief Executive Officer of GIFEC, Prince Ofosu Sefah, said the DTC project aims at providing digital skills to citizens, especially the marginalised, in Unserved and Underserved communities to enable them to adapt to current trends and technologies.
The participants in the two-week intensive training include teachers and artisans. They were provided practical, hands-on training in Basic and intermediate CISCO-certified ICT courses such as Cyber security, Introduction to IoT, among others. The Chief Executive Officer of GIFEC, Prince Ofosu Sefah said GIFEC is committed to ensuring that 70 percent of women and girls are included in its Information Communication Technology (ICT) trainings so as to build an inclusive digital society. He urged the participants across the country to leverage the requisite knowledge and skills acquired under the project to enhance their businesses for socioeconomic development.
“The programme aims not only to train people in all these digital skills we mentioned but it’s also aimed at bridging the digital divide, so from that sense, we tried to skew it into areas where we are a bit behind. The digital divide is not one that is only geographic in terms of the difference between those who live in urban and rural areas, but it’s also a digital divide from the point of certain communities, such as some of our women and girls who sometimes don’t apply or use technology as much as the male counterparts,” he said.
The Ho Municipal Chief Executive, Divine Bosson, commended the Ministry of Communication, GIFEC, and its partners for the initiative and appealed to them to expedite action in operating the Ho Community ICT Centre to benefit its people.
“I would like to appeal to the Ministry of Communication and the GIFEC to expedite action on the taking over and utilisation of the Ho Community ICT Centre in order to reap the full benefits of the facility”.
The participants were awarded certificates for their successful completion of the training. There are about 10 Digital Transformation (DTC) Centres in the Volta Region.