MTN Foundation has kicked off the year with its five-week Digital Skills Training programme, upskilling 6,000 young Nigerians. The programme, which is in its fifth week commenced in January 2026.

MTN

The seventh phase of the project is focused on supporting Nigeria’s microbusiness to embrace digital transformation, at a time when SMEs remain the backbone of the Nigerian economy.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), SMEs account for over 90 per cent of businesses in Nigeria and employ a significant portion of the country’s workforce, underscoring the importance of initiatives that strengthen their productivity and sustainability.

Following a one-month call for applications in September 2025, which saw almost 64,000 entries from Nigerians between the ages of 18 and 35, the 6,000 selected microbusiness owners have embarked on a five-week training that will end in February 2026.

The virtual training programme began with a general onboarding session that brought together participants across four business tracks and set the foundation for a four-week programme focused on practical digital strategies for business growth.

Microbusiness owners from sectors including circular economy, agriculture, food services, fashion, retail, logistics, beauty, and printing attended the training.

At the heart of the training is the principle that digital transformation has the capacity to enable small businesses scale and become more efficient. Participants were encouraged to start small, digitise repetitive tasks, and scale gradually using the Kaizen approach of continuous improvement.

This mindset allows them to see technology as a practical enabler of growth rather than a barrier. As the training progressed, the participants also learned about telesales and cybersecurity.

Speaking on the importance of the initiative, Odunayo Sanya, Executive Director of the MTN Foundation, said the programme is designed to equip young microbusiness owners with skills that directly address real business challenges.

“Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and enabling young people adopt simple digital tools can make a real difference in productivity, sustainability, and long-term growth,” she said.

She also mentioned that the top-performing 600 participants will receive equipment grants of N600,000 each at the end of the programme.

Participants will continue to access learning materials and session recordings for the 5-week course, ensuring that digital adoption extends beyond the classroom. By combining practical guidance, relatable case studies, and continued support, the programme reinforces the message that digital growth for SMEs is achievable leveraging on technology.

Airtel Nigeria has reaffirmed its long-term commitment to strengthening Nigeria’s digital infrastructure and data access to bridge gaps in connectivity and unlock new opportunities in the country.

The company restated this commitment during a recent high-level inspection tour of the Nxtra Data Centre that is being developed through Nxtra by Airtel Africa at Eko Atlantic, Lagos, the highly rated smart city with ambition to become the Data Centre hub of Nigeria.

The inspection tour was led by the Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Nigeria, Dinesh Balsingh and the Chief Executive Officer of Nxtra by Airtel Africa, Yashnath Issur, with the esteemed chairman of Eko Atlantic Mr. Gabbi Massoud, the CEO of the lead Engineering firm Design Group Limited, Mr. Bayo Odunlami and tech journalists.

The Nxtra Data Centre went through a stringent design validation process and cleared the approval to proceed construction from Eko Atlantic.

Commenting on the developments, Mr Issur said the site visit was a milestone marker and an indication of the company’s commitment to delivering the world-class digital facility on time and ensure that, ultimately, the investments deliver reliable, secure, world-class services for Nigeria and the rest of the continent.

“This Nxtra Data Centre in Lagos represents a critical part of our long-term vision for Nigeria’s digital ecosystem. Today’s visit allows us to review progress, engage our stakeholders, and ensure that our infrastructure investments continue to meet global standards and local needs.

“This data centre will deliver critical high multi megawatt capacity in line with hyperscale customers and enable high density environment. We are putting the infra to bring the cloud to Nigeria,” he said.

The data centre, set to be the largest in Nigeria, is being established to deliver hyperscale and edge facilities across key African markets. With a load of 38 Megawatts, the Lagos facility is expected to serve as a major hub for data hosting, cloud services, content distribution, artificial intelligence, and enterprise solutions in West Africa.

In his remarks, Mr Balsingh reiterated that the data centre was progressing steadily towards the previously announced 2028 go live date.

“Since the announcement of this project, our focus has been on building a world-class facility that supports Africa’s digital transformation agenda. We are encouraged by the progress recorded so far and remain committed to delivering a secure, energy-efficient, and future-ready data centre for Nigeria,” he said.

During the tour, stakeholders were ushered through key sections of the site, including piling zones, where required structural requirements have been tested. Technical teams provided briefings on infrastructure design, security architecture, redundancy systems, and sustainability measures being implemented to ensure reliability and operational excellence.

Strategically located close to major fibre routes and undersea cable landing stations, the Eko Atlantic data centre is designed to enhance Nigeria’s data sovereignty, reduce latency, and improve access to reliable digital services for private and enterprise customers, significantly boosting the country’s data hosting capacity and supporting emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

Mr. Massoud noted that the inspection tour underscored the city’s dedication to infrastructure of global relevance.

“Eko Atlantic as a city with high quality infrastructure will contribute positively to boost the economy of Nigeria and is a perfect place for the development of the digital infrastructure of Nigeria. The Nxtra data centre reflects the calibre of projects we seek to attract — long-term, technology-driven investments built to the highest global standards.

Today’s visit affirms the rigour of the planning and execution process by Nxtra, and the commitment of Eko Atlantic to facilitate and promote the Nigeria’s evolving digital ecosystem,” he said.

Through this ongoing investment, Airtel Nigeria and Nxtra continue to demonstrate their commitment to building infrastructure that enables innovation, supports economic development, and accelerates Nigeria’s digital transformation.

Nxtra by Airtel is developing a network of hyperscale data centres across the continent. Besides Lagos, construction of a new data centre has also commenced in Nairobi, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Google has partnered with top African research institutions to unveil WAXAL, a massive open-access speech dataset aimed at giving over 100 million people across Sub-Saharan Africa a stronger voice in the AI future.

Google

The initiative, announced Monday, targets a key digital gap by supplying high-quality data for 21 local languages, such as Hausa, Yoruba, Luganda, and Acholi. It includes 1,250 hours of transcribed natural speech and more than 20 hours of studio-grade recordings for advanced synthetic voice tech.

Voice AI has exploded globally, yet Africa’s 2,000-plus languages suffer from severe data shortages, sidelining hundreds of millions from native-tongue tech access. WAXAL, three years in the making with Google funding, changes that equation.

“This dataset lays the groundwork for students, researchers, and entrepreneurs to craft tech in their own languages, impacting over 100 million lives,” said Aisha Walcott-Bryantt, Head of Google Research Africa.

She highlighted its potential for African innovators to develop educational tools and voice services that spark economic growth continent-wide.

Community-led from the start, the project involved Makerere University (Uganda), University of Ghana, Digital Umuganda (Rwanda), and others. These partners own the data outright, pioneering fair AI collaboration models.

Covered languages: Acholi, Akan, Dagaare, Dagbani, Dholuo, Ewe, Fante, Fulani (Fula), Hausa, Igbo, Ikposo (Kposo), Kikuyu, Lingala, Luganda, Malagasy, Masaaba, Nyankole, Rukiga, Shona, Soga (Lusoga), Swahili, Yoruba.

WAXAL goes live today. Details at goo.gle/IntroducingWaxal.