Academy tasks engineers on capacity for fourth industrial revolution

Professional engineers have been urged to brace for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which will impact the world through conscious development of capacities for use of artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, the Internet and other tools.

A Professor of Agricultural and Food Engineering at University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Akindele Alonge, gave the charge at the fellows’ forum of the Nigerian Academy of Engineering (NAEng) held virtually in Lagos.

He said that personal upgrades with respect to Information Communication Technology (ICT) and digitalisation, mentoring of younger generation and capacity-building in key technologies linked to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) must be prioritised.

Alonge, a fellow of the Academy, stressed the need to also overhaul university and polytechnic curricula to proffer solution to end-users and to reflect current event, assist the government by advising of what needs to be done in all areas of engineering as it applied to digitalisation, continuous training and enlightening the public on 4IR and its implications.

“Experts assert that it would be a tragedy for Nigeria to miss the fourth revolution because this presents a huge opportunity for Nigeria and other African countries to leapfrog into the global technology ecosystem,” he said.

Also, speaking on optimising the implementation of the 25 railway master plan for efficient and effective national development, Managing Partner, Ideas & Visions Consultancy Limited, Nebolisa Emodi, said the Nigerian Academy of Engineering needs to reiterate the imperative to finalise the transportation reform bills and advise the Federal Government to review, update/enact other complementary transportation bills to enhance inter-modalism and multi-modal regulation.

He, however, reiterated the urgency for the federal and state governments to identify, verify and secure alternative and sustainable sources for funding the development and operations of the railway’s modernisation programme.

Similarly, Chairman of, Manufacturing Committee of NAEng, Otis Anyaeji, said that to achieve sustainable industrialisation, the country must develop the capacity to produce the necessary industrial machinery.

To realise this, he said, would necessitate the establishment of engineering infrastructure, comprising technical and managerial manpower, material and primary facilities whose products are used in machine design and fabrication, and therefore in efficient and productive working of the land and setting up of industries.

Anyaeji, a past president of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), stated that a good production-engineering infrastructure would enable tools of the various trades and other equipment to be manufactured, whether designed by mechanical engineers or electrical engineers, or metallurgists.

Also speaking on corrosion-related projects in the oil and gas industry, and how to mitigate impact, another fellow of the Academy, Prof. Olagoke Olabisi, lamented that all-important corrosion-related projects are contracted to foreign consulting firms.

He said it is time that selected universities are empowered to establish Corrosion Control Centres of Excellence (CCCE) on account of the extensive physical assets of oil and gas operations in the country.