The Federal Government of Nigeria has disbursed a grant of N45 million to local inventors and innovators in the country. Making the disclosure to newsmen in Abuja, recently, the Director-General, National Board for Technology Incubation (NBTI),
Mohammed Jubrin, said that the fund was disbursed to inventors and entrepreneurs in 2017 by the Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, in order to aid a culture of technology based entrepreneurship.
According to Jubril, another N45 million had been appropriated this year for disbursement to other inventors and entrepreneurs.
He added that the NBTI will soon announce for inventors and innovators to apply for the grant.
“The NBTI has been part of the presidential standing committee on inventions and innovation, which identifies innovators, inventors and other technocrats for grants.
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“A committee had been set up with the aim of using industries for the development of Nigeria by harnessing all researches and development results and other innovative efforts for commercialisation.
“Fortunately, the NBTI has been part of the presidential standing committee on inventions and innovations. This a committee that identifies inventors, innovators and other technocrats for grants from the Federal Government.”
Jubril said that the board was committed to intensifying linkages and collaborations so that all inventors would have more opportunities in NBTI, saying that the board would lay more emphasis on commercialisation and community incubation.
The NBTI boss also stressed the need to devote more attention to having new companies emanating from a thorough research endeavour.
His words: “We will pay more attention to the real commercialisation of research and development results so that we can have new emerging companies that originate from literary works and from knowledge sources.”