Expert Tasks Students on Innovation 

A senior lecturer at the Computer Science Department, University of Lagos, Dr Victor Odumuyiwa, has urged Nigerian university students to push their boundaries to develop ideas that will change the norms.

Odumuyiwa gave the advice at an innovation competition organised by the UNILAG Faculty of Science in collaboration with the Prof. Ogundipe Innovation and Science Foundation, the second in the series, recently in Lagos.

Odumuyiwa was the keynote speaker at the competition with the theme ‘Empowering the Future, Unleashing the Potentials of the Gen-Z, for Disruptive Innovation’.

He stated that tomorrow’s future belongs to the youth and may not be fulfilling if they fail to look beyond the present and chart a better way.

He challenged the youths to always be ahead in finding solutions to present-day challenges, such as education, health, technology, energy and insecurity, rather than leaving the country in droves.

According to him, one thing that leads to disruption is the ability to separate the end goal from the process of achieving it.

“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 turning things around. Learning, for instance, is not about the information we acquire. It is not only the duration of time that you put into learning that matters, but what you can do to solve challenges with that thing you have learnt,” he said. 

Odumuyiwa added, “Today, artificial intelligence literacy is no longer what we need. Rather, AI dexterity. Today’s youths 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.”

Odumuyiwa also called on the government to provide an enabling environment for the ideas of the youth to be birthed. He stressed the need for favourable regulation in place for innovative ideas to be brought to reality, as well as the availability of access to capital.

“On the part of the university, I advocated for a rainforest approach to innovation, as well as strive to embrace disruptive education. For the young people, they must also strive to imbibe the culture of patience, to ensure they have that depth, as well as sustainability. Strategic partnership and collaboration are also very key. They must identify platforms and opportunities that can help them bring out innovation,” he stated.

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.

Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, immediate past vice-chancellor of the university, said that the idea behind the competition was to develop Nigerian students in innovation to find solutions to the country’s challenges.

Ogundipe, on whose behalf the competition was launched, added that about 900 university students entered the competition, with 200 shortlisted thereafter.

He added that the 200 later came up with various ideas, which also saw 100 shortlisted and later brought down to five.

Ogundipe stated, “I want to return all the glory to God because what we are seeing here today is the handiwork of students in our faculty, the Faculty of Science. They decided to come up with an enduring programme for me so that even after leaving office, they will be doing it annually, and that is what led to the Prof. Ogundipe Innovation Challenge, where they bring in students from all over the country to compete.”

He added, “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. Some have started their own businesses. Because of COVID and the strike, it was, however, delayed till this time, and I want to assume that the next one definitely will be done before the end of the year.”

Speaking on the sustainability of the competition, he said that the organisers had involved a foundation and that donations from the foundation would be used to run the programme. He stated that the winning team from the competition would get a prize of N1 million.