Companies and establishments both in the private and public sectors of the economy have been urged to improve on their ICT architecture to enable their workers to work from home during this COVID-19 crisis period.
The Nigeria Information Technology Reporters’ Association (NITRA) said such measures should also enable students to study from home, while schools remain closed.
Speaking in the light of increasing cases of the Coronavirus infections, the Chairman of NITRA, Mr. Chike Onwuegbuchi, noted that this is the time when most company’s technology platforms will be tested, following the directive for people to maintain a relatively good social distance as a measure of curbing the rate of infections from the virus.
He therefore called on companies to ensure they put in place secure messaging platforms for company staff to interact while at home, and also maintain a strong and secure server that will handle the increased traffic on their company networks.
Onwuegbuchi, urged management of companies to empower their staff so that they can be productive from home. He said this is to ensure that productivity is not reduced to zero due to the scourge of COVID-19.
Speaking on the need for a robust technology to help companies operate with remote staff input, Onwuegbuchi noted that service providers can contribute their quota to alleviating the difficulties people are facing in this trying period by offering low cost technological services.
He called on telecom service providers, including mobile network operators (MNOs) to reduce their charges for voice and data services in a bid to make communication cheaper and easier for their consumers. This, he noted will make consumers rely more on telecommunications, and live streaming of messages/communications rather than physical meetings.
It would be recalled that the Lagos state government has put measures in place to ensure that the spread of the virus is greatly minimized. Some of the measures put in place include a directive that gathering of people in a particular space be reduced to 50, this include places of religious gathering, social gatherings and political gathering. Also the state government has directed civil servants of Grade Level 12 and below in the state to work from home as from Monday March 23.
