1,600 innovators apply for TETFund research fair

The Organising Committee of the TETFund National Research Fair/Exhibition has announced that it has received over 1,600 entries for the maiden edition of the programme.

This comes as the committee extended the submission of concept notes by one week.

In an interview with reporters on Sunday in Abuja, Chairman of the committee, Engr. Umar Bindri, called on Nigerians who have not yet submitted their proposals to take advantage of the one-week extension.

Scheduled for November 17 to 22, the TETFund National Research Fair/Exhibition aims to bridge the gap between research, innovation, and the market.

Engr. Bindri said the five-day event will provide a platform for researchers, innovators, manufacturers, investors, venture capitalists, and policymakers to showcase their products to the market.

He said the Fair will support and promote homegrown technologies to emerge as businesses and solution providers, ultimately reducing dependence on foreign technologies, saving foreign exchange, creating massive jobs, and generating wealth, especially for the country’s teeming youth population.

While expressing the Tertiary Education Trust Fund’s (TETFund) commitment to supporting cutting-edge research and its application for economic development, the agricultural engineer said the event would showcase practical research outcomes and scalable prototypes to potential investors and entrepreneurs for commercialisation.

He disclosed that at the end of the submission deadline, entries would be screened and shortlisted before the commencement of the programme.

The Guardian reports that the submission period was initially scheduled from September 9 to 30, 2024.

“We have two categories of submissions. One is from formal institutions: universities, polytechnics, research institutes, and colleges of education. The second is from informal institutions like the partakers and creative individuals.

“The formal submissions are around 1,300. The informal ones are around 300, so we have between 1,500 to 1,600. We have extended it by another week, so by next week we will do the final close down.

“We want to ensure that submissions are formal. We don’t want someone coming to the gate with their invention, begging, saying they’re from your village. We cannot make progress using those primitive ways of doing things,” Bindri said.

On what sets this fair apart from others, he said: “When you see a winning technology, we bring the intellectual property experts through this committee to help you. We will bring the funders to see it and convince them so they can invest.”

The panel is a sub-committee of the National Research Fund Screening and Monitoring Committee (NRFS&MC) of TETFund.

Also speaking, the Chairman of NRFS&MC and member of the TETFair Organising Committee, Prof. Hayward Mafuyai, said the committee is looking for “low-hanging technological fruits that are ready for the market.”

Prof. Mafuyai announced that patent lawyers would be in attendance to offer expert advice and assistance to innovators on securing patents and commercializing their creations.

“Hopefully, we are looking forward to some agreements being struck. Some of those good products that can go straight into production will be identified. If that happens, we will be making another step in the right direction, especially at this time when we need all sources of revenue to be generated, and jobs to be created,” he said.

The move, the don said, aligns with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.