Vice Chancellors of Universities from the South have applauded the ongoing initiative of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to support the tertiary institutions to drive research and development and ensure that the output is nursed to commercial levels.
The academia spoke this week at the NCC’s roundtable meeting with academia and industry stakeholders, held in Lagos, to look at the path from innovative research to commercialisation of viable prototypes.
The meeting showcased ten prototype research outputs that the NCC had already sponsored, for which about N500million grants had been released.
The Vice-chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Prof. Kayode Adebowale, who led the VCs to applaud the NCC and list the many ways NCC has been aiding the universities, said the NCC schools; support programmes have been beneficial.
The NCC initiative, Adebowale said, “is an excellent programme mainly for the country, because one of the problems we have in our research efforts is a lack of handshake between universities and government and the private sector to handshake with them so it would not be research for research’s sake but research for development, such that industries would be encouraged to come to the universities to tell us what they need and problems that they have, so research would be focused in such areas in a collaborative way”.
“And the universities can also go to the industries to look at their needs; it is when we can do that the universities would be able to impact national development; otherwise, we would just be carrying out research, and they would remain on the shelf and die there. When we come together like this, we can exchange ideas, and the NCC provides the channel, the background, and the opportunity for us to interact.
Also speaking, Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology Akure, Prof. Adenike Oladeji acknowledged the role the NCC is playing in supporting research across the universities, saying that the theme of the NCC organised roundtable: The Path from Innovative Research to Commercialisation of Viable Prototypes fits into the vision of the university.
“We academia are willing to cooperate with the industry, all we need is a meeting point, and we thank the NCC for creating that point. We need more meeting points (such as the one created by the NCC) and collaboration.
The Vice Chancellor of the University of Port Harcourt, Prof. Owunari Gengewill, applauded the NCC for licensing the 5G spectrum that will enable the Internet of Things (IoT)and artificial intelligence.
The academia also listed the many ways the NCC has helped the universities, which include the provision of tablets, laptops, computers, and institution of professorial chairs and supporting other computerisation efforts of several universities, both in the North and in the South.
So far, the NCC has awarded 49 telecom-based research grants to academia, out of which ten prototypes have been successfully developed. The ten prototypes already developed were showcased at the Lagos meeting.
