A senior lecturer at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Dr Victor Odumuyiwa, has urged students in the nation’s tertiary institutions to strive to push their boundaries in a bid to come up with ideas that would change the norms.

Odumuyiwa, from the Computer Science department, challenged the youths to always be a step ahead in finding solutions to present-day challenges, instead of leaving the country in droves.

Odumuyiwa spoke at the ‘Innovation Challenge,’ a competition organised by UNILAG Faculty of Science, in collaboration with Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe Innovation and Science Foundation, for undergraduates across the nation’s tertiary institutions.

The competition is to encourage students to be innovative and come up with business ideas that can help bring meaningful solutions to the myriad of problems confronting Nigeria and its people.

Odumuyiwa, who was the keynote speaker at the competition, themed: ‘Empowering the future, unleashing the potential of the Gen-Z for disruptive innovation,’ noted that tomorrow’s future belongs to the youth and such may not be fulfilling if they fail to look beyond the present and chart a better course going forward.

“Our youths must strive to break barriers and impossibility mentality. Some already believe that the country can never be better, but we want to say no to that. We must look for a means of changing the narrative and turn things around. Learning, for instance, is not about the information we acquire.

“Today, Artificial Intelligence (AI) literacy is no longer what we need, rather, AI dexterity. Our today’s youth don’t understand boundaries. They create easily. They don’t believe in the mentality of limitation. They want to go forward and achieve.

“The young people are also in a hurry to escape poverty and until we change that, we will keep producing and they will keep going. They say ideas rule the world, I beg to disagree, it is the implementers of such ideas that do,” he said.

Odumuyiwa then urged the government to provide the enabling environment for the ideas of these youths to be birthed.

He also advocated a favourable regulation to bring innovative ideas to reality.

On the part of the university, he canvassed a rainforest approach to innovation, as well as striving to embrace disruptive education.

For the young people, the university teacher said they must strive to imbibe the culture of patience, while identifying platforms and opportunities that can help in bringing out innovation.
According to him, good ideas are not adopted automatically, they must be driven into practice with courageous impatience.
He added that once implemented, they could be easily overturned or subverted through apathy or lack of follow-up, as continuous efforts are required.

Ogundipe, the immediate past Vice Chancellor of the university, said the competition was about developing Nigerian students in the area of innovation to find solutions to the country’s challenges.

Ogundipe, on whose behalf the competition was launched, disclosed that about 900 students drawn from various universities across the country, put in for the competition, and 200 were later shortlisted before they were reduced to 100 and then five.

“What we are seeing is the handiwork of students in the Faculty of Science.
They decided to come up with an enduring programme for me so that even after leaving office, they would be doing it yearly, and that is what led to the Prof. Ogundipe Innovation Challenge, where they bring in students from all over the country to compete.

“During the maiden edition of this competition in 2019, some of the people who participated and won the award are doing brilliantly well now in different areas, while some have started their businesses,” the former VC said.

He added that the main focus was to encourage students to be their own masters, and start their businesses.

Speaking on the sustainability of the competition, he said the organisers have involved a foundation and donations from there would be used to run the initiative.

In her remarks, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Folasade Ogunsola, said since almost 70 per cent of about 223 million Nigerians are youths, and with no jobs, universities must produce graduates who can create jobs and be employers of labour.

While the top prize winner received N1 million and would also go for free training, the second, third and fourth positions got N750,000, N500, 000 and N100,000 respectively.