BIO-key International, Inc. (BKYI), an innovative provider of biometric software and hardware solutions for strong, convenient user authentication and large scale identity, announced today it has secured a contract to provide its biometric software and hardware solutions in support of a Nigerian Ministry of Labour program to educate, empower and create employment for one million recent college graduates in Nigeria. The program also seeks to foster the creation of a secure and scalable e-commerce infrastructure to support a variety of industries across Nigeria. BIO-key expects to generate $45M in revenue from this contract over the next 18 months.

The program has been developed in partnership with local consultants, Exponential Launch Africa Limited (ELA) an affiliate of Technology Transfer Institute of Africa (TTI), Imperial Education Services (IES), and BIO-key Africa, via a strategic partnership with the National Electronic Labour Exchange (NELEX), Nigeria, under the auspices of the Federal Ministry of Labour, Nigeria.

The program involves training and equipping approximately one million recent graduates with hardware devices, biometric readers and software, plus the requisite skills necessary to utilize BIO-key’s biometric technology solutions. The program will deliver a variety of education, healthcare, retail, financial and identity management services across the country.

Akintunde Jeje, Managing Director for BIO-key Africa and Chairman at Exponential Launch Africa Limited, stated, “Our strategic partnership with NELEX is yet another substantial step towards promoting and advocating BIO-key and, more importantly, driving real-life use cases for its identity management technologies. NELEX is the Federal Government of Nigeria’s regulatory agency responsible for creating high-quality employment across Nigeria. This high profile relationship provides access to BIO-key’s innovative technologies, and our collaboration will reinforce our position as the premier biometric solutions provider in Nigeria and Africa as a whole.”

Ms. Mienye Badejo, Deputy Director of Labour and Employment stated,

“This exciting project perfectly matches the core mandate of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, through the National Electronic Labour Exchange. As a regulatory agency for employment creation, the Ministry’s core mandate is ensuring ‘Decent Work, Safety and Social Security.’

“We look forward to the start of this novel and strategic relationship as Nigeria possesses an impressive human resource pool that is largely untapped. This program will greatly and positively impact the utilisation of our tremendous talent pool.”

BIO-key CEO, Mike DePasquale, commented,

“We are excited to provide biometric solutions in support of this national initiative to employ and empower one million future leaders in Nigeria. This enormous initiative, made possible by the Ministry of Labour in Nigeria, is a testament to the forward thinking of our partner, ELA an affiliate of TTI, as well as our African subsidiary’s leadership.

“Nigeria is taking a global leadership role in deploying biometric authentication, as reflected in our recent $30M contract, in partnership with Chams Plc, to facilitate the enrollment and positive identification of millions of customers for telecommunications partners in Nigeria. We believe our technology delivers an excellent combination of security, value and ease of use for enterprise and government customers across Africa, one of the world’s largest and fastest growing economies,” De Pasquale added.