Ghanaian-American chemical engineer and inventor, Dr. Thomas Mensah is pushing for the training of some 300 thousand Ghanaian youth in software development in order to maximise the potential of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector in the country.
This will make Ghana the leader in artificial intelligence on the African continent.
Dr. Mensah who was paying tribute late United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, lauded the establishment of the Kofi Annan ICT centre in Accra, arguing that the centre is one of the sure legacies left behind by the only African to have risen to the very top at the United Nations.
According to him, Ghana must follow the example of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which is currently training some 1 million software engineers who will be competing globally and economically rewarding their country.
‘’The Kofi Annan ICT centre is for software development and it is very important because the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is training 1 million software engineers. These are kids, 1 million of them to compete in the world. So Kofi Annan had a vision to set up the Kofi Annan ICT centre. If we are able to train maybe 300 thousand youth in software development, we will be leaders in artificial intelligence’’ he said.
Dr. Mensah described the late number one diplomat of the world as a very down-to-earth and humble person who respected everyone in society irrespective of the fellows standing.
‘’I wrote a letter of congratulations to Kofi Annan when he won the Nobel peace prize. He wrote me back to show you how humble he is. He told me in the letter that the prize was for the United Nations and himself. I still have that letter in my books. So this is a person who thinks about other people. He exhausted himself in serving the whole world and Ghana, he did everything from agriculture, food security seeds for farmers and so on. So that is the giant we are talking about’’ he said
Source: BestNewsGH.com
