Communications Minister, Ursula Owusu Ekuful, maintained that government was committed to fully digitize the entire Ghanaian economy with the deployment of cutting edge technologies to ease the way of life of the Ghanaian.

The minister said the current administration understands the development of Digital Skills as one of the key building blocks for creating the digital economy.

She announced her ministry had already put together the enabling legal, regulatory and policy environment to foster innovation and grow the Digital Economy.

She made the remarks during Huawei Technologies’ launch of the 2019 edition of its flagship Corporate Social Responsibility initiative, Seeds for the Future 2019 in Ghana at the Ministry of Communications.

The Minister said: “We believe in creating opportunities for digital Ghana to take root and for all of us to play our part in it by building the skills that you the young people need to be able to succeed in the unfolding digital revolution which is taking place before our eyes.

“We are innovating for the future. The world is moving and changing very fast and we will continue to create that enabling ICT environment for businesses to be profitable and to grow and for innovation to take root,” Mrs. Owusu Ekuful said.

“Government alone cannot establish and sustain the Digital Economy without support from technology giants like Huawei. Huawei has always been a good partner in the transformation of our ICT ecosystem. Nurturing and growing the talent pool through digital literacy will ensure a purposeful future for our youth who will in the next few years directing the affairs of this country.”

Speaking on the training the minister stressed that “Talent is crucial for the growth and development of any industry and the rapidly growing ICT industry has greatly changed business models and customer requirements. As a result, across the ICT ecosystem, there is an urgent need for large numbers of technical staff who can address the challenges posed by this transformation. Many young people have lost their jobs, but there are still not enough ICT professionals. This mismatch between talent supply and demand hinders social progress and creates social problems.”

To the participants, she said “the initiative is not for us to undo each other but to sharpen the knowledge we have acquired. With growing digitization, businesses are looking at connectivity solutions that are available in real time, highly reliable and scalable as per their requirements but most importantly, they need the require the right expertise.”

Huawei in partnership with the Ministry of Communications selected 10 students from the University of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana Technology University College (GTUC), Koforidua Technical University to participate in this year’s ‘Seeds for the Future’ project.

The students will be taken to China for intensive training to help develop their skills and talent in Information Communication Technology (ICT). The students who will be trained in Shenzhen and Beijing in China will be equipped with necessary skills, to enable them to identify and harness new opportunities in ICT.