Tinapa Agog as ICT Eggheads Storm City for NSCC

This year’s National Software Conference and Competition (NSCC), a flagship event put together by the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (Ispon) promises to be bigger and better as over 25 resource persons drawn from USA, Europe, Ghana and Nigeria have all penned down their names to share knowledge and brainstorm on the latest trends in the IT industry.

Leaning on the success of the previous year, Ispon, is heading back to the Tinapa Knowledge City, Calabar, Cross River State from October 29 to 30 and have signed on MainOne Cable Co and 21st Century Technologies as partners.

The theme of this year’s event is “The Cloud and the Future of Software Nigeria” but there are but several other presentations on Mobile Content Development, Broadband as well as Software driven solutions for diverse sectors of the economy.

Funke Opeke, managing director,  MainOne Cable Company will deliver a paper on “Broadband Infrastructure – Imperatives for Cloud Computing” while Wale Ajisebutu, chief executive officer , 21st Century Technologies Ltd, would be speaking on “Information Technology Park – Imperatives for Building Software Engineering”.

Elsewhere, Prof. Bill Megalos, a professor at UCLA and, Daniel Molina, the director of the award winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” are also billed to speak.

Ispon said that Sen. Liyel Imoke, governor of Cross River State, would be on hand to host while some of Nigeria’s finest brains including Omobola Johnson, minister of Communication Technology; Prof Cleopas Angaye; director general, National Information Technology Development Agency (Nitda); Ernest Ndukwe, distinguished Knowledge Ambassador; and other special guests will grace the occasion.

There is never a dull moment at the Conference and Competition.

It would be recalled that the team from Abia State Polytechnic Aba won the inaugural ISPON Innovation Cup at the National Software Conference and Competition –Tinapa last year.

The team made away with the first prize trophy and N1 million cash prize and it is left to see if Abia State Polytechnic can put up another superlative performance this year.

Meanwhile, the teams that missed out of the top spot in the 2011 competition have vowed to dethrone the team from Abia Sate Polytechnic and have painstakingly polished their projects for the 2012 competition to perfection.

It is interesting to note that students of Nigerian Tertiary Institutions are agog with excitement and huge anticipation for the 2012 Software Competition after witnessing the spectacle of the 2011 edition.

Judging by their anticipation, it would be safe to say that the 2012 Competition would indeed be huge.

In a related development, calls have been made from members of the Nigerian Software Industry to honour the late Lion of Software Nigeria – Engr. Simeon Chijioke Agu for his immense contribution and commitment to the accelerated growth and development of Software Nigeria.

One of the immediate responses to the call is the renaming of the “Innovation Cup” to the “Simeon Agu Trophy for Software Development”.

Agu passed away on July 9th and was buried on September 28th 2012.

A “Night of Tributes” was organized by Ispon in collaboration with the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) and Computer Professional Registration Council of Nigeria (CPN) for Software Industry Practitioners to celebrate the life and achievements of the great lion of Software Nigeria.