NIGERIAN CONTENT DEVELOPMENT AND MONITORING BOARD (NCDMB) AT THE LAUNCH OF THE UNICORN INCUBATION CAMPUS IN LAGOS STATE
NIGERIAN CONTENT DEVELOPMENT AND MONITORING BOARD (NCDMB) AT THE LAUNCH OF THE UNICORN INCUBATION CAMPUS IN LAGOS STATE
The Chairman, Board members of UNICORN, distinguished guests, ladies, and gentlemen.
It gives me great pleasure to be a part of today’s epoch-making event which is the launching of the UNICORN Incubation Campus, reputed to be Africa’s largest incubation campus here in Lagos, Nigeria.
This edifice attests to the fact that Africa is about to further unleash a lot of potentials which will be to the advantage of Nigeria and the African continent at large.
The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board is happy to be here to demonstrate our support for this laudable project. NCDMB was established in 2010 by the Nigerian Oil & Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act as the sole Agency of the Federal Government responsible for driving the development of local content in the oil and gas industry.
The key mandates of the Board as enshrined in the NOGICD Act is to develop local capacities and capabilities, monitor compliance and enforce the provisions of the Act.
Thus, we are always excited to be part of any initiative aimed at the development of local capacities and capabilities in our country Nigeria.
Our Vision is to serve as a catalyst for the industrialization of the Nigerian oil and gas industry and its linkage sectors. These linkage sectors include power, construction, ICT, and several others.
I have no doubt that this Unicorn Incubation Campus is definitely a place that will catalyse innovation and creative ideas to address modern challenges.
The Board has always been very supportive of innovation and technology. Our 10-year strategic roadmap recognizes Research and Development as a key enabler in the attainment of our 70% Nigerian Content target by 2027.
The 10-Year roadmap was hinged on five key pillars and four enablers. The strategic pillars are Technical Capability Development, Compliance and Enforcement, Enabling Business Environment, Organizational Capability and Sectorial & Regional Market Linkages.
The four (4) enablers are Funding, Regulatory Environment, Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement and Research & Statistics.
We believe that by tapping from the ingenuity of our young talents, we will enhance the delivery of the various strategic initiatives enunciated in our 10 Year Strategic Roadmap.
Over the period of 10 years, over 10 million training man hours have been utilized to train youths under our Human Capacity Development programs.
The Board partnered with Industrial Training Fund (ITF) on youth development and empowerment by training 255 youths on 9 vocational skills including ICT, Industrial Automation & Mechatronics, Process Control, and Building Technology.
We partnered with the Lagos Energy Academy to train and certify 100 youths in Electrical Engineering. The program achieved 60% job placement for the participants.
In recognition of the critical role of ICT in national development, we embarked on construction and equipping of ICT centers in secondary schools across the geo-political zones of Nigeria. We also invested in the Training of Teachers to improve STEM education with over 1,500 teachers trained to date.
The Board also invested in the youth empowerment initiative in the form of the GSM repairs training. A total of 3,500 youths has been trained in GSM hardware and software repairs in Kano, Yobe, Bauchi, Kaduna and Cross Rivers States.
The Board recently completed the 4th Edition of the Annual Undergraduate Essay Competition aimed at getting the thoughts of the youths on the role of Research and Development in the Oil and Gas Industry.
The first edition of the NOGTECH Hackathon was concluded last November which produced five (5) groups of winners who have completed technology incubation and mentoring at our facility in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.
Similarly, the Board partnered with ENACTUS and came up with the Science and Technology Innovation Challenge (STIC) for youths in Nigerian Universities. The competition has reached the final stage and six (6) teams have emerged as contenders for the grand price.
We secured approval for the $50million Nigerian Content Research & Development Fund to drive basic research, commercialization of research breakthroughs, establishment of Centers of Excellence, and to sponsor University endowments.
Ladies and Gentlemen, let me highlight that as we train for Human Capacity Development on the supply side, we are also working on the demand side so that the capacities and capabilities developed can be utilized.
The Board is involved in the development of industrial parks in six (6) states to enhance manufacturing, entrepreneurship, and jobs creation. We have several partnerships on the development of modular refineries, LPG cylinders manufacturing, power plant, gas processing, and others to generate employment for those we have trained.
The Board is proud of the various intervention programs in Human Capacity Development but there is room for to do more from stakeholders in the public and private sectors.
With about 170 public and private universities in Nigeria producing more than half a million graduates every year, we see huge opportunities to extract brilliant ideas from our agile and very creative youths to solve current and future challenges.
That is why the Board is excited about the launch of this UNICORN Incubation Campus which seeks to prepare and equip Nigerian youths in the application of science, technology and innovation to create home-grown business solutions to everyday problems in the different sectors of the Nigerian economy.
The provision of a world-class platform such as this for education, training, mentorship, infrastructure, and long-term capital to entrepreneurs and start-ups in the technology and technology-enabled sector using ecosystem strategy is an excellent proposition for any discerning individual or business.
Taking a look around, it is obvious that the 4th Industrial Revolution is upon us. We are in the era of cloud computing, Internet of Things, Robotics, Big Data, and many more.
Straight from your handphone, you can carry out several transactions from ordering for food to checking for your blood pressure.
Slowly and steadily, newspapers, bank cheques, raw cash, and many of the things we are used to are becoming outdated.
The truth is that innovation will never go out of fashion. A newly acquired technology becomes obsolete over time and it is important to always adapt as quickly as possible as change is constant and inevitable.
I have said on several occasions that the stone-age did not disappear because of lack of stones. In the telecoms sector for example, the Nokia telephone was a must-have for billions of mobile telephone users but we all know how slow decisions to respond to the shifting consumer taste led to its fall.
The Boeing-727 passenger jet was once a must-have for major airlines transporting millions of travellers across the globe daily. The jet was finally rested in early 2019 after being upstaged by the more quiet and efficient models.
Technology and innovation have revolutionized the business environment such that tech firms are much more valuable and, in most cases, earn much more revenues than the conventional businesses we know.
For instance, the share price of Apple Incorporated on the New York Stock Exchange is more than twice the share price of ExxonMobil. The market capitalization of Apple is over two (2) trillion dollars while that of ExxonMobil is about 240 billion dollars. That should tell us where the world is heading.
Electric cars have been introduced into the Nigerian market. Any discerning mind will note that the end of the era petrol driven cars in Nigeria has started. The transition will not happen overnight, but we have been served notice, and it is just a matter of time before the internal combustion engines in cars become extinct.
It is important that we do our bit to prepare and position ourselves to embrace these disruptions and the other aspects of the 4th Industrial Revolution.
I believe that facilities such as the UNICORN Incubation Campus we are launching today are very vital in the ecosystem of technology development infrastructure.
Let me once again commend the vision of the Chairman and Board of Directors of UNICORN Incubation Campus for choosing to invest in the development of human capacity and nurturing of tech and innovation start-ups.
This incubation campus could have been utilized as a shopping mall or an hotel or rental apartments. The choice to invest in our youths and nurture the next generation of entrepreneurs is truly patriotic and inspiring.
I call on our teeming youths to put on their thinking caps and utilize this facility to innovate and incubate viable solutions that will solve challenges in Nigeria and the world at large and earn the associated rewards.
Nigeria already has the attention of big tech companies all over the world with the visits by their CEO’s such as Mark Zuckerberg and the announcement of Microsoft to accelerate the Nigeria’s digital economy that will foster job opportunities, upskill up to five million people, and create over 27,000 new digital jobs in three years.
Let me also put is on record that NCDMB is ready to partner with UNICORN to further channel the creativity and energy of our youths to promote peace, development, and excellence.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Engr. Simbi Kesiye Wabote FNSE, FIPS
ES, NCDMB
