Galaxy Backbone Nigeria partners Microsoft to create employment opportunities for young Nigerians

Galaxy Backbone in collaboration with devices and services giant, Microsoft Nigeria is set to create employment opportunities for young Nigerians through the Employable Skills Development Internship Program (ESDIP) of the Government Wide Messaging and Collaboration (GWMC) project based on the Microsoft platform.

The ESDIP Initiative is a project targeted at providing capability development programs and training in the federal public sector for the already deployed GWMC platform, while also enhancing adoption and usage of the platform.

Galaxy backbone is a government agency charged with the responsibility of providing a common information and communications technology platform for Federal Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies
By this, Galaxy Backbone will enhance modernization in government via the increased adoption of the already deployed government wide messaging platform, elevate the security stature of government data, by ensuring all sensitive government communication move from public mail infrastructure to the secured and award winning 1-gov.net platform (United Nations Public Service Awards for 2013 – “Promoting Whole-of-Government Approaches in the Information Age” Category) and help drive skill development and contribute to employability/job creation in the country.

Gerald Ilukwe, CEO, Galaxy backbone in his remarks said, “the Government Wide Messaging and Collaboration platform (GWMC) is about efficiency, cost-savings, increased productivity and the effective delivery of public services to the citizenry by modernizing the way public officials communicate within government. For Galaxy, there is a linkage with the Employable Skills Development Internship Program (ESDIP) which is a capacity building initiative that seeks to enhance the employability of participants in the marketplace. The essence is to empower public officials and the interns to be more effective and efficient in their endeavors”.

In view of the strategic nature of the project, Microsoft will lend its support in certain key areas including “Change Management” – with a view to build capacity, drive benefits management and encourage early and rapid adoption of the solution by end users.

The organization will also partner with the Integral Assets Limited (a capabilities consulting firm) on recruitment of Interns, delivery of train the trainer sessions for Interns – WP8 &MS Outlook, on-site activation of devices and training of government officials, making GWMC the foundation to the e-government journey towards Gov3.0, amongst others.

Speaking on the partnership, Olayinka Oni, Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Nigeria explained that “the objective of the program is to train interns to develop transferable and employable skills that will facilitate their placement in organizations. At the same time, leverage the interns to support the GWMC program through the distribution of devices and training of recipients in the use of the devices.”

Through the program, Microsoft will distribute over 500 windowsphones in support of the GWMC program, while Integral Assets Limited will recruit and train the interns on behalf of Microsoft that would be responsible for the distribution of these phones to their respective recipients.

The Employable Skills Development Internship Program (ESDIP) with GWMC will run until the 30th of January 2014 and Microsoft is targeting 75% placement of the interns with companies especially the partner community at the end of the program.

Interns will participate in a comprehensive 10 week training program covering MS Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Report Writing, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Time Management, Windows Phone 8, Customer Service, Employment and Interviewing Skills, etc. Each intern will also receive a 20 page Insights Discovery Personality Profile to facilitate self and social awareness based on an online evaluator.