NOTAP Urges Africa To Invest In Innovation, Tech For Sustainable Devt

The director general of the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), Dr. DanAzumi Mohammed Ibrahim has called on African countries (Nigeria inclusive) to embrace innovation and technology for sustainable economic development of the continent.

Dr. Ibrahim made this call while presenting the keynote address at the 2022 Commemoration of African Day for Technology and Intellectual Property Rights held at the Innov8 Hub, Airport Road, Abuja with the theme “Creating economic value from indigenopust technology.”

The NOTAP boss said that developed countries are better placed in the global order because of advancement in technology even as he tasked all African countries to invest more on research and development to ensure the technological advancement of the continent.

“It is technology that demarcates between developed countries and developing countries in innovation, invention and research. We regulate the inflow of foreign technology in this country and we see the quantum amount of the technologies that come into Nigeria and we see the quantum amount of money that leaves this country.

“No country will develop so long as it continues to depend on other countries for its technologies. As long as we continuously remain within the shackles of dependency of imported goods and services, there is no way we can develop.

“We have talents in this country. What we need is to harness the talents and channel them into our developmental strategies,” he said.

Dr. Ibrahim further stated that while carrying out the statutory responsibility of the Office, it was observed that the culture of Intellectual Property Protection within the knowledge institutions were low, hence the need to establish Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer Offices (IPTTOs) to encourage inventive and innovative activities in the knowledge establishments.

He said that prior to the establishment of IPTTOs, researchers in the Universities, polytechnics and research establishments were not interested in patenting their research and development results, rather they published their inventions for the purposes of career progression. He said that with IPTTOs in place in the universities, the situation has changed.

The 13th September of every year was set aside for the Commemoration of African Day by the then African leaders and heads of states to arouse the latent intellectual capabilities of the African youths in Adiss-Ababa, Ethiopia.

In his brief presentation, the Head of Programmes of Innova8 hub, Dr. Obichi Obiajunwa, bemoaned Nigeria’s poor position of 118 out of 132 countries in the global innovation index and called on stakeholders especially the governments to take urgent steps to develop the technology and innovation potential of Nigeria and other parts of Africa.

He said that Innova8 hub is a privately owned facility and a non-profit innovations driven organization with the mandate to groom generations of innovators, inventors and researchers for national development.

He further stated that Innov8 is a focal point for innovation start-up, incubation, technology transfer, knowledge and skill impartation, prototypes development and fabrication. He added that the organization strategically assists organizations and individuals seeking to transfer their ideas into initiatives, inventions into solutions.