The Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Mr Sonny Echono, says the recently-held TETFund National Research Fair/Exhibition aligns with its aspiration to use technology to spur national economic growth.
Echono, said this during an an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday.
He said the initiative aimed at transforming Nigeria’s economy through research, innovation and entrepreneurship.
The Fund between November 18 and 21 held a tech fair which showcased research outcomes from TETFund’s beneficiary institutions and other innovation from private individuals, connecting them to industries for commercialisation.
According to him, the expo was driven by three key realisations which included that the most assured path for sustainable transformation of the nation’s economy was research and innovation.
“It is lies in harnessing our intellectual assets, converting those into products and services to address our national challenges, shortfalls, and also to exploit the opportunities that exist in various sectors of our economy.
“So we believe strongly that research, development, innovation and entrepreneurship have a major role to play in transforming this economy from a consumptive to a productive one,” he said.
He also said that in spite the significant investments in research over the years, many innovations had remained confined to bookshelves and academic papers.
He, therefore, noted that the expo sought to bridge the gap between research and marketable products by showcasing Nigerian-made inventions across various industries.
Echono further said that the initiative was inspired by the success stories of countries like China, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brazil, Singapore, and South Korea, which have leveraged local talent and innovation to drive economic growth.
He said the expo aimed to replicate this success by identifying problems, supporting innovators, and facilitating commercialisation.
“Over the years, TETFund has invested so much money in supporting research programmes and there have been so many discoveries arising from them.
“Unfortunately, not many Nigerians have seen these products. Not many of them have crossed from the bookshelves, from drawers to goods on shelves for consumers in supermarkets for Nigerians to consume.
“And suddenly, from our partnership with one of our innovators, we now began to see a lot of these products being showcased, being demonstrated on farms, in the field, and so on.
“And we felt that we were awakened by this, and we felt that we needed to do this to scale. So let us even have a national database of all those who are getting involved in innovation, so that we know,” he said.
The executive secretary said the Fund created a competitive selection process for the fair and picked some entries out of more than 2,700 of them that were received.
According to him, the event brought together researchers, manufacturers, policymakers, venture capitalists, and industry experts to assess and refine those innovations to ensure that they meet commercial standards.
“This was further reinforced by the fact that we have so many untapped resources in this country. We have so many youths that are not engaged. We’re not creating enough jobs.
“And we are spending a whole lot on importation of goods, services, even food.
“So, we came up with the idea of a national exhibition where anybody who has anything to showcase in Nigeria and what you have been able to develop can bring them forward.
“So, we created a competitive process. We got more than 2,700 entries. But we know we have space limitations. So, we got the final numbers about 600 or 700 that we eventually participated,” he said.
He said the major highlight of the Expo was the issuance of patents to selected innovators, reinforcing TETFund’s commitment to intellectual property protection and commercialisation.
