So as to better equip future energy industry minds to shine, NCDMB, Shell and co. craft out sweet ICT hub in FUTO
The NOGICD [Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development] Act, 2010 provided the platform for an innovation hub being launched at the oldest university of technology in Nigeria established in 1980.
If all the Federal University of Technology Owerri’s undergrads should ever become the complete package a needy labour market expects they would be as soon as the next four to five years when their degree programmes would have been done and over with, a Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) alongside oil explorer Shell, would have ensured that. All these partners formed a force that has ensured the delivery of an information and technology hub on Thursday, 24 October 2024.
Here is the NCDMB’s Executive Secretary Engr. Felix Omatsola Ogbe stating the Board’s commitment towards nurturing tech-based attributes at several centres of learning. We shall keep enhancing institutional capacity to equip our students with the requisite knowledge and skills needed to compete globally in the wake of the 4th industrial revolution where Artificial Intelligence, data science, Internet of Things, robotics dominate.
The comment was Engr. Ogbe’s address was given yesterday at a launching event in Owerri, the Imo State capital where FUTO is located. Through his representative Dr. Ama Ikuru, the Board’s Director of Capacity Building, he talked about the deliberate effort of his organisation aimed at better equipping anywhere there is room for technical and vocational learning.
For those training at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, they get new facilities such as two state-of-the-art Engineering Design Studios and a fully furnished 100-seater Main ICT Lecture Hall housing computers and smartboards.
According to Engr. Ogbe, a visually stimulating collaborative workspace that fosters an environment where students can engage in group work, and bond together to have brainstorming sessions, and ideation meetings in one is what the hub being launched provides.
There are cute landscaping on the side, as well as a 200KVA diesel generator, diesel storage tank, generator house, borehole, overhead water tank, perimeter mesh wire fence, a car park, as well as shallow drains to communicate the feeling that something crucial and future-looking is going on.
The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited’s Managing Director and Country Chair, Mr. Osagie Okunbor was at the launch. He commended the collaboration that delivered the Engineering Design Studio and ICT Hub. The coming together of NNPCL, SPDC, TotalEnergies, Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC), and NCDMB according to him is a very important human capital development project.
Just like the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board’s Executive Secretary, the MD was also represented by Shell’s external relations manager, Igo Weli. His representation helped to explain that the Owerri federal government-built university was selected to benefit from institutional strengthening in the catchment areas of SPDC’s Assa North Ohaji South Gas Development Project.
Of course working together with partners to lay a bed for innovation chimes with the Nigerian Content Human Capacity Development Plan which is an offshoot of the NOGICD [Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development] Act, 2010 and NCDMB’s HCD Guidelines of 2020 says should happen. The objective of this development plan is to get oil industry operators, contractors, sub-contractors or an alliance partner to invest in technical capacity for as long as they work in Nigeria.
More will come in the form of a 40KW solar system [that] will be installed in the coming weeks to ensure sustainable energy supply, says Shell’s managing director Okunbor.
Every representation had a chance to share their view on what having a favourably-equipped ICT hub means including the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and the Imo State Government. It is perhaps FUTO’s Vice-Chancellor Professor (Mrs.) Nnenna Nnannaya Oti gave a more personal analysis of the new set of tools.
She said having the hub aligns with the critical mandate of the University, to jumpstart national development through indigenous technology-based teaching pedagogy that emphasises practical knowledge, innovations and problem-solving. This was the vice chancellor early on in the ceremony – right before a ribbon-cutting ritual with the dignitaries and NCDMB staff members working out of closely-knitted Imo and Abia states.
