The bank’s Group Managing Director, Herbert Wigwe, disclosed this on Friday while speaking through the Executive Director (Personal Banking), Access Bank, Victor Etuokwu, at the unveiling of the Empowering Women in Technology (EWT) initiative in Lagos.

He said that the training was in collaboration with the Wide Fusion Digital Centre (WDC), which specialised in marketing and technology training for the digital world.
Wigwe said that 400 women would be trained each month to be versatile in the use of technology.

According to Wigwe, Access Bank believes that women are the glue that put everything together, hence, the need to empower them with technology.

“Technology is the currency for doing business in this 21st century and women need to be inculcated into it. Everything we do in Access Bank is geared toward empowering the women.

“This is the beginning of a 12 months initiative on how women can leverage technology to develop their lives.

“We intend to train 400 women every month in the next 12 months. With the training, we hope to see it manifest in the growth of their businesses,” he said.

The Minister of Communication Technology, Dr Omobola Johnson, said that all over the world, there were few women in technology than men and Nigeria’s gap between the men and women was wide.

Johnson said Nigerian women love to use technology if available, but factors such as income, education and social position had made fewer women than men own, access and use ICTs.

She said that women needed to use ICTs because of the catalytic role it played in improving the socio-economic well-being of women in particular and Nigerians in general.

“Economically, women who adopt technology improve their businesses; they are more efficient and effective in their jobs,” she said.

The minister said that there was the need to create awareness of ICT to the female gender, hence, the adoption of the Girls-Women in Nigeria (G-WIN) initiative by the Ministry.

“We are improving the ICT literacy of women and also targeting girls at an early age. The Digital Girls ICT (after-school) Clubs are increasing interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in schools,” she said.

A former Minister of Education, Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili, urged the womenfolk to be determined to use ICT.

Ezekwesili said that the ubiquity of technology was so enormous, as it truly equalised access and strengthened the right to demand accountability.

“Technology enables one to impact on people far away, women should have avidity to learning technology, as it widens horizon,” she said.

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Johnson who made this disclosure in Lagos during the 4th Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Industry Stakeholders Forum, organised by the ministry, said, hopefully, NigComSat would have been privatised by 2018 and it would be done in such a way that would be viable.

According to her, the satellite service provider company is going into partnership with other satellite owners to x-ray avenues to increase the viability of NigComSat.

She also said NigComSat-1R, the country’s satellite launched in 2011, had increased its commercial value through the generation of revenue for government.

“The revenue was generated through the leasing of five KU transponders, C-Band, broadband sale and leasing of Direct To Home (DTH) platform to private strategic partner.

”Ongoing projects are being designed that will increase revenues from this government asset. The lease of its KA transponders is being planned for first quarter of 2015.”

She said that in connecting Nigerians, NigComSat had complemented the fibre/terrestrial networks in Nigeria for the deployment of broadband networks in the rural areas and other sectors.

According to her, it includes sectors like security, health, education, agriculture and other applications with wide ranging geopolitical distribution.

She said that NigComSat would also be a key partner during the upcoming analogue to digital, adding that TV channel broadcast migration project would also depend on partners like NigComSat

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