As Nigeria gradually slides into an
economic recession, the effects of her industrial and technological
backwardness can vividly be seen as almost nothing works at the moment.
There has never been a more required time than now for a technological
and industrial revolution.
Universities were established basically
for two reasons. First and primarily for research and second, for
knowledge dissemination. It is indisputable that Nigerians are one of
the smartest people in the world. We go and do exploits wherever they
are found but unfortunately, most research done by universities, never
get to see the light of implementation. Perhaps it is apposite to share a
personal experience: briefly after my undergraduate studies, while
interning as an algorithm designer and program debugger at the Centre of
Excellence in software engineering, Obafemi Awolowo University,
Ile-Ife, I met a couple of students at the software lab seeking some
assistance. They were developing a robot that uses sensors to learn
about the environment and then make decisions based on information
gathered overtime. At the end, the robot was able to navigate the entire
laboratory and perform some other tasks. Those students put in for an
international robotics competition but didn’t go far since they were
competing with people with more sophisticated robots and they had done
theirs with the little and insufficient resources at their disposal.
