BoI Sounds Alarm over Outdated Production Technology
The Bank of Industry (BoI) has warned that industrial development will continue to be impeded if majority of Nigerian manufacturers continue employing outdated technology in their production processes and called for a synergy of innovative researchers and industry owners.
Addressing members of the Nigerian Academy of Engineers, who paid a courtesy visit to the development bank in Lagos, BoI’s Managing Director, Rasheed Olaoluwa, stated that there was a direct correlation between the level of technology in a society and the level of development there.
“The rest of the world through artificial intelligence and robotics are moving at a tremendous pace; Africans need to close the gap – things don’t need to get so bad before we start looking for solutions,” he said.
He assured that BoI, will continue to promote the linkage between centres of innovation and the industrial sector.
“Last year we visited a number of research institutes, because to engender our nation’s development we need to bring industry and research together. I believe that we still have a long way to go but we are beginning to take the right steps,” he said.
He noted that no country will like to release its patented technology to another country and urged research institutes in the country to intensify efforts to solve Nigeria’s industrial sector needs in terms of technology.
“We will continue to give the right support like we are doing, through agro-processing – adopting technology from research institutes to transfer to agro processors in the country,” he said.
He urged researchers in the country to advance reverse engineering, by looking at what has been done and how it can be adapted to suit the demands of the industrial sector.
He stressed that technology was absolutely critical to the way things are being done, noting that today, analogue technology has been integrated with software to change them into smart devices.
Other advancements in technology which he noted were defining how things are being done now, include, drones, 3D printing, DNA genomics among others.
He said as a development bank, BoI was committed to supporting the advancement of commodity industrialisation through agro-processing; Solid minerals beneficiation and crude processing.
Earlier, the president of the Nigerian Academy of Engineers, Professor Raifu Salawu, informed the BoI boss of the willingness of the body of engineers to collaborate with the industrial sector.
He lamented that most researches being done in the country were not end-user oriented: “there is a need for those in industry to sit down with researchers so that the end product can be tailored to their specific needs thereby making them easily useable.”
He added that most researches should be development oriented rather than cutting-edge oriented, because the major need for technological innovation are in the areas of economic development through industrialisation.
He said the body through its fellowship has been assisting Ph.D. students to go abroad for further learning, as well as giving grants to post-graduate students to make paper presentations at conferences overseas.
“We will continue to assist in domiciling researches for local industries and we are ready to work with BoI to move this nation forward,” Salawu said.
