Nigeria’s Society of Engineers has recently revealed its Smart Innovation Hub, designed to encourage productivity, facilitate networking, and support the commercialization of research endeavors undertaken by both members and stakeholders.
During the event held in Abuja on Wednesday, Tasiu Gidari-Wudil, the President of NSE, shared that the idea for this innovation hub was born in 2016. Its primary objective was to empower Nigerian engineers in alignment with the country’s aspirations.
In his opinion, the innovation hub is the hub for idea generation, development, and the subsequent journey to commercialization. He emphasizes that a significant portion of university research remains untapped in terms of commercial potential.
- “What we want is from the conception of the idea to the product so that Nigeria can take its rightful position in technology.
- ”This building has been built and we need to make sure that inside the building is a show of technology.
- “Today we are launching this hub we have all the components, we are going to have virtual offices,” he said.
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Meanwhile, He pointed out that the lack of office space was making it challenging for members to establish offices. Yet he insisted that young engineers can take advantage of the hub through the use of virtual offices the Institute has set up.
- ”Our young engineers with little amount can come and take the virtual office here They will do their business and with all the conditions we attach to it, and it will show the acceptance of the Nigerian public and the world,” he said.
Furthermore, Gidari-Wudil emphasized that the virtual aspect of the setup offered the possibility of accommodating up to one million offices, enabling each member to have their workspace.
He said that it was a very good place for business because all security measures would be put in place to ensure that no one is defrauded.
When discussing the NSE’s role in shaping the agenda for the Bola Tinubu administration, the NSE boss expressed satisfaction that the President had introduced specific priorities, including digital skills and technical vocational education.
He said,
- “This hub is already designed to do that. We have training week where skills can be acquired in engineering practice and of course, we have digital skills to be harnessed by our members, AI, Internet of Things, and all of that.
- “One of our members has developed a kit for training in schools which was usually bought from outside We have developed it here we will see to the deployment of those kits to our universities and polytechnics.
- “And this hub will not work alone, we have signed an agreement MoU with other hubs. If we don’t have a particular research item, we go to other hubs and do it and come and aggregate it here that is why we have an aggregator.
- “The aggregator means that all the intellectual properties will be aggregated there, all those copyrights and people will be given the chance to go through them and sharpen their ideas,” he added.
