By Sunday Ani
Director General of National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), Mohammed Ibrahim, has called on African countries to embrace innovation to boost and sustain the continent’s economic development.
He made the call at the 2022 commemoration of African Day for Technology and Intellectual Property Rights.
According to the NOTAP boss, the event held in Abuja was a fulfilment of the wishes and aspiration of the past African leaders and heads of states who gathered in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia, to set aside September 13 every year as the African Day for Technology and Intellectual Property, to arouse the latent intellectual capabilities of the African youths.
He said what differentiates the developed countries from the developing countries was the advancement in technology, and encouraged the African countries to invest more in research and development to boost the technological advancement of the continent.
He added that the developed countries were far ahead of the African countries because they had invested much in research and development.
Ibrahim regretted that the secondary and vocational schools that constituted the major partners in the event with technology and innovation exhibitions were conspicuously missing because schools were just resuming after a long break and called on the governments, at all levels, to be committed to research investment.
He lamented that the culture of intellectual property protection within the knowledge institutions was very low, stressing the need to establish the Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer Offices (IPTTOs) across the country just to encourage inventive and innovative activities in the knowledge establishments.
He commended the establishment of IPTTOs, which, he said, encouraged researchers not only to publish their works for career progression but also patent them.
Head of Programmes of Innov8 Hub, Obichi Obiajunwa, described Innov8 as a focal point for innovation start-up, incubation, technology transfer of knowledge and skill impartation as well as prototypes development and fabrication. He said the firm strategically assists organisations and individuals seeking to transfer their ideas into initiatives as well as inventions into solutions.