While September was ending, Meiza joined the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) to start a countdown towards the 2024 edition of the Triple Helix Nigeria SciBiz Conference that was going to be held in Abuja in just about a month from then. That moment has come but now concluding as the Board’s Executive Secretary Engr. Felix Omatshola Ogbe joined oil industry representatives, subject-matter experts and policymakers to attend an event with the theme “Integrating Research, Innovation, and Policy: Triple Helix Pathway to Research Commercialisation.”

The conference was for three days starting from Wednesday 23 October and ended today.  It was there that the Board signalled plans to support new research and development projects just like what brought out Amal Technologies, a gas-leaking detection device manufacturer which came to life as a result of the Technology Innovation and Incubation Strategy that NCDMB was grooming. This is expected to add to the 14 applied research projects NCDMB currently sponsors.

At the conference, NCDMB was represented by its General Manager of Research and Statistics, Mr. Silas Ajimajaye, as a fitting sub for the Executive Secretary who was absent.

For the duration that he had the stage, Mr Ajimajaye mentioned a thirst within the Board that wants to create an ecosystem where research, innovation and policy can interact has never been more critical as we steer through the complexities of the 21st Century, and being a sponsor of a platform of global reckoning is one of the paths that ensure that.  The Triple Helix Model of academia, industry, and government collaboration, says the research and statistics general manager is an appropriate international business framework that adds to our strength of innovation and ensures that all efforts go into fuelling the grand old aim – National Development.

There is a backing for innovation to grow with the $50 million Nigerian Content Research and Development Fund created by the NCDMB in 2020, the executive adds. This is a product of the Nigerian Content Development Fund (NCDF), aiming to provide much-needed research funds in the oil and gas R&D space.

Having grown Triple Helix Nigeria’s membership from the starting twelve to a whopping 240, there was a moment for its president, Alhaji Abdulmalik Halilu to reiterate what the platform seeks to achieve. 

It is simply to foster value creation in the Nigerian economy which is in line with a local content philosophy of looking inward and promoting technological skill sets that Africans need to solve their problems as natives, instead of expats coming in to take jobs that normally should have gone to the locals the way it is seen in developing countries like China.

Alhaji Halilu is also NCDMB’s director of monitoring and evaluation. He says Triple Helix Nigeria seeks to inspire at least 10 knowledge institutions to accelerate innovation and have at least 10% equity in 10 listed companies in the next 10 years, that is its vision. For this to happen as planned, he sees universities and centres of learning in general as holding the key. These elements play a central role in ensuring that research work can be monetised and in turn boost economic outputs.

Justifying why such a gathering had to happen, the director made the argument that a move to smoothen a viable path enabling education through research to commercialisation heralded an evolving frontier like the 2024 Triple Helix Nigeria SciBiz Conference on an inaugural journey.

Here, academia, industry, and government collaborate to ensure research transcends beyond the boundaries of whitish laboratories and ponderous classrooms. Where it should all lead must be a stage where solving real-world problems and fostering economic prosperity becomes the general fixation.

What to her could be the result of working together is a robust ecosystem where research meets industry, innovation drives policy, and Nigeria rises as a global leader in science, technology, and innovation.

Meiza Nigeria