Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) has been urged to be united in articulating its vision in the ever-changing economic order which does not have boundaries.

Chinenye Mba-uzochukwu, immediate past president of ISPON stated this in his remark at this year’s Extraordinary General Meeting of the Institute held in Lagos recently.

He said: “we have not achieved our full potential and our full potential rest on what all of us in ISPON do together.

“We may have different opinion in terms of what our priorities are. We may have areas of our specific interest we wish to pursue, at the end of the day it is only when we pull together that we can actually make things happen.

“Taken up single items sometimes works but as you know all systems people know, a system is a system the parts have to work together, we must find a way of creating that synergy. The energy is transferred from one gear to the other and so on. Or in programming you don’t have to get a retrogressive lope where it says same thing over and over again.

“In the past 5 to 10 years we have seen a quite number of movements in the industry and the end result has been that we have established certain franchise within the system and some level of respectability within the area that seem to be our greatest challenge which is the regulatory system.

“We will continue to fight those battles, even as we speak there are a number of bills that are still in view that represent to a very large extent a threat to the overall system itself unless we respond together as one we may find ourselves unable to achieve what we are looking for.

“This conference and EGM are extremely important in that respect. It is critical that we understand the challenges that we face as the system itself is changing as it is accelerating and expanding, what is happening is that as it is expanding there is the tendency that the elements will start to lose touch with each other.

Technology especially software is in the hands of a generation that has more hairs than I do. That generation does not have connection with people like ourselves. The generation that seems to want to go it alone.

“A generation that wants to make and break and move on. Not to build big enterprise system that takes may be 5 to 10 years to put together.

“It is a generation that wants immediate result, a generation that is completely entuned with the fact that they are global citizen and their capacity and creativity can take them anywhere in the world”.

He noted that Nigeria and indeed Africa is facing the speed challenge and as people try to shut the door, and advocate policies that close the door, they cannot close the door because it is globalized world.

“It is a world where there is infinite movement across all dimensions. What we answer today is the call of the market primarily and it is the aspiration of every individual to be the best they can possibly be.

“How do we create an environment that is fertile, rewarding, exciting for anyone who wants to participate in our industry?

“Artificial intelligent world is a world that should excite us and not frighten us. We need to understand that a child of tomorrow is a child that is enabled by his/her capacity to use AI.

“We were told when calculator came we should not take it to the exam hall, we had to work with the slide rule. We have gone from the slide rule to the calculator, we thought the calculator will end all knowledge and make our children dumb.

“We have gone beyond that now, we tell them now not to take the computer to the room. But, today AI is an intrinsic part of our world.

“We must expand not only our minds but also our hearts. We have to accept that the world which we are living in have huge challenges as well as huge potential that is ours, and we have a right to participate in it and our children, children also have a right to participate in it”.

Also speaking, Mr. Bimbo Abioye, the newly elected president of ISPON, reiterated his resolve to ensure active participation in the Nigerian software dream.

“We will encourage Ministries, Departments and Agencies of governments (MDAs), including the private sector to embrace software Nigeria, and patronise it in order to support its growth.

“We will also ensue that Nigeria produces quality software that will meet the needs of Nigerians as well as the needs of multinational companies operating in Nigeria.

“Today we have local software that performs optimally better than most foreign software imported into the country. Software business is about trust, because the software codes are not tangible, but embedded into the computer system to perform certain operations via commands.

“It is for this reason that ISPON must ensure that software developed in Nigeria, must be tested and trusted for use”, he added.