The Federal Government through the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has committed over N500 million to the Nigerian universities and other tertiary institutions across the country to facilitate research and innovations to promote developments in the Nigerian telecommunications industry.
Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Prof. Umar Danbatta, who disclosed this at a two-day Regional Roundtable with Academia, Industry and other stakeholders, which ended in Kano State, at the weekend, said the funds had been committed to research grants to universities and tertiary institutions, including professorial chairs in the universities in salient areas to drive technology development.
Danbatta said the Commission was now focused on supporting the academia in the commercialisation of the prototypes from these innovative researches as this is relevant to the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy’s policy towards achieving indigenous technology for sustainable development of our country.
He said the roundtable organised by the Commission was to provide the necessary platform to support the commercialisation of locally- developed telecommunications innovations which NCC has been sponsoring.
“The Commission collaborates with the Academia in maximising the contributions of tertiary institutions to innovations and sustainable development of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry as finance is needed to drive possible success of these endeavours,”