BoI pledges partnership with NASENI on indigenous technology

THE Bank of Industry (BoI) has pledged its willingness to collaborate with the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), to promote indigenous technology in Nigeria.

   The BoI Managing Director, Rasheed Olaoluwa, said this in Abuja when he led the bank’s management team on a working visit to the NASENI office.

   Olaoluwa said that BoI was prepared to support and encourage Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs) that were ready to patronise NASENI’s products.

   He also urged engineers to key into the agency’s initiative by partnering it on technology innovations that were development oriented.

   He said there was a direct correlation between technology and the nation’s development, adding that it had been proven that no nation could develop without technology.

   “BoI will be prepared to support SMEs that are ready to patronise NASENI’s technology. We are also willing to collaborate with the agency on many of its products like the solar panel and agricultural processing machines.

   “A nation that wants to develop must pay attention to technology because it has been proven from the beginning of humanity that technologies control the economy.

  “No matter how hard we try, unless we are able to achieve some form of independence in terms of technology, we are only scratching the surface,’’ the BoI boss said.

   He said the bank’s role was to serve as an active link between centres of innovation such as NASENI with its affiliate institutes and industries, because BoI was seated at the centre of industrial development.

   He urged NASENI to get its technology products patented to be able to get returns in form of royalty from its users to sustain the agency.

   Dr Muhammed Haruna, Executive Vice-Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NASENI, said the agency was determined to own its technologies locally to drive the nation’s industrialisation.

   Haruna said that NASENI had launched made-in-Nigeria motorcycles and tricycles and many other technologies, which included cassava and grain processing machines and solar panel.

   He said that BoI’s support for the agency’s innovations would help increase its capacity to produce more.

   According to him, the possible areas of collaboration expected from the bank include training and capacity development for new and existing SMEs.

   Haruna said the agency also needed the bank’s collaboration in the provision of appropriate technologies for entrepreneurs, indigenous industries, SMEs and industrial parks around the country.

   “We also need collaboration in technical support and extension services to sustain the growth of new and existing indigenous industries

and the development of off-grid electricity generation to support indigenous industries,” he said.

   The NASENI boss said the agency had launched five kilowatts of kinetic turbine in Mada River in Nasarawa State, while currently working on 2×35 kilowatts in Ikeji in Osun.