The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) says it has completed a N354 million Technology Orientation Center as hub to boost locally-made tech innovation in Nigeria.
The government agency, NASENI , was designed to conduct developmental work in the areas of manufacturing, and capable of co-ordinating the proliferation of technologies across the country.
Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, Minister of Science and Technology says at the commissioning that the Tech Centre would ensure Nigerians become the true masters of their own destinies.
The Minister says that the President Muhammad Buhari-led administration has resolved to give total support to the development of indigenous technologies, noting that science and technology remains the key to true national and economic growth.
“I believe that if we pay greater attention to innovation and vigorously pursue the conversion of research findings into viable goods and services, we can recreate the middle class, strengthen the Naira and secure a better future for ourselves and generation yet unborn”, the Minister says at the commissioning held at NASENI corporate headquarters in Abuja.
Onu explained that the NASENI Technology Orientation Centre would help entrepreneurs, researchers and innovators gain considerable access to the necessary processes that would speed up the commercialisation of inventions and spur economic growth.
On his part, Professor Mohammed Sani Haruna, Executive Vice Chairman of NASENI, says the new tech hub would not only promote indigenous technologies, but also take on new and emerging technologies and determine their relevance to the Nigeria’s economy.
“The agency will put in place a programme for periodic assembly of Nigerians both at home and the Diaspora interested in the subject, not to only determine the desirability and applicability of new emerging technologies but develop prototype products and services meeting the needs and yearnings of the nation for self-reliance”, Haruna says.