Nigeria Should Devote 20% Of Oil Revenues To Science, Innovation – AfDB’s Adesina – The Whistler NG
“Nigeria needs to set up a National Science and Innovation Fund, devoting about 20 per cent of its oil earnings to driving innovation for the faster tech-enabled growth of Nigeria to power the Nigeria of the future, ” President African Development Bank (AfDB) Dr. Akinwumi Adesina has said.
He also called on the government to set up a National Science and Innovation Fund that would drive the process of making the country to be among countries with sophisticated technology base.
Adesina, who spoke at the 13th Convocation Ceremony of Bowen University held yesterday in Iwo, Osun State. He charged universities in the country to shift away from rote teaching into allowing students to experiment, try things, put ideas to work, and innovate.
He said universities need to have structured institutional arrangements for supporting innovations, stressing that in the US universities set up offices for innovation development and commercialisation of innovations developed by universities.
The AfDB president added that developing patents in universities is not enough which he noted that “patents must lead to business and that can only happen through supportive environments for them to thrive. Setting up university foundries is a good way to achieving this.”
He lamented that out of 100 most innovative ranked universities, African universities is nowhere to be found on the ranking list while universities in the US had 45, adding the world today and more so in the future is and will be dominated by science, technology and innovations.
Adesina, however urged the government to encourage private sector to locate research, technology and innovation centres on university campuses, noting that students should be supported to have internships in these centres. While urging universities to set up endowed funds to invest in ventures of their students.
“The lesson is clear. Universities must understand the needs of the private sector and look for how to drive technologies, innovation and entrepreneurship to meet those opportunities. That’s the kind of win-win partnerships that the private sector is looking for from universities.
“The world today and more so in the future is and will be dominated by science, technology and innovations. With the fourth industrial revolution, there is rapid advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, automation and quantum data analytics.
“It is not data that will control the world, it is those who control data. Think of it: every time you use Google, WhatsApp a friend, post on Instagram or Facebook your data has been collected.”