One of the goals of NITDA is to develop globally competitive manpower in IT. Various activities are being embarked upon to fulfil this goal. For instance,
i) The Enterprise Technology Center (ETC) was established in the Federal Secretariat Abuja for the training of top level decision makers. Accordingly, the Head of Service of the federation led over 50 permanent Secretaries on a two-week ICD-based IT training. Other people that have been trained in this centre include:
• Directors of Ministries
• Senior police officers; and
• Security operatives in the public service

The top down approach is to open the market and encourage private sector training institutions to train the lower cadre officers in the public service. The aim is to make all public officers proficient in IT within the shortest possible time.
NITDA also trained about 100 members of the immediate past National Assembly on basic IT appreciation course. The programme was done in collaboration with UNDP.

ii) Another major approach is the ‘train the trainer programme’ on the free and open source software. It is in preparation of Nigeria to migrate to the use of free software which is the general trend the world over. Two of such workshops have so far been organized in 2003 and 2004.

iii) Cisco Networking Academy: NITDA currently runs a Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) at the NITDA headquarters from where over 200 youths (mostly NYSC members serving in Abuja) have graduated.

iv) Centers of excellence: In order to be relevant in the global IT market and become exporters of IT skills, services and equipment, there is urgent need to develop the required local manpower which unfortunately, the nation’s tertiary institutions are not adequately equipped for. Centers of excellence are therefore being setup to meet the nation’s needs in Information Technology skill development.

Specifically, skills would be developed in software engineering. This is important especially with the obvious need to be a major exporter of IT rather than being a consumer. With the center of excellence, Nigeria is moving towards this and more wealth and jobs would be created for Nigerians. Other relevant areas where capacity would be developed in these centers include:
• Data communication and information Engineering
• Systems Engineering
• Database Technologies
• Super Computing Architectures
• Open Source Software Development

To achieve the desired result, the programme was launched in April, 2004 and the need assessment study has commenced to:
• Create awareness on the need to develop and encourage the manufacturing of Nigeria’s ICT goods and services.
• Establishment of centers of Excellence in the six-geopolitics zones of the country through developing and equipping tertiary institutions with adequate modern IT facilities.
• Collaborate with relevant national and international bodies to secure resources for the effective and efficient operation of the Centers of Excellence
• Development of necessary expertise to manage the Centers of Excellence
• Development of relevant ICT curricula to produce globally competitive manpower.

This is in continuation of the road map of turning Nigeria into an ICT exporting country which definitely not be achieved without adequate infrastructure and capacity development. Countries that are relevant in the ICT sub sector started like this.
In Nigeria, six such centers would be established with one in each of the six geo-political zones. Approval has been given for the take off of the first pilot phase viz:

a) Digital opportunity village (Abuja ICT center of Excellence) to be situated along airport road.
b) Lagos ICT Center of Excellence at NITDA Lagos office now operational.
c) Port Harcourt ICT Center of Excellence

Deliverables of capacity Building:

• Empowerment of Nigerians with IT skills to prepare them for global competitiveness
• Development of human capital with emphasis on creating and supporting knowledge based society
• Ensuring Nigerian’s meaningful contribution towards providing solutions to global challenges of the information age
• Encourage local production and manufacture of IT components in a competitive manner
• To increase the mass of IT trained personnel for Nigeria
• To develop alternative sources of revenue earnings for Nigerians