The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is making plans to boost the country’s telecommunications sector with its partnership with the Federal University of Technology (FUT), Minna, and other tertiary institutions on research into emerging technologies in the telecoms industry.
Umar Danbatta,executive vice chairman of NCC, made this known during a press conference on the sidelines of roundtable with academia, industry and other stakeholders in the North Central region, in Minna, Niger State, on Wednesday.
Danbatta, represented by Austine Nwalune, the director of spectrum administration, NCC, pointed out the academia as a very important stakeholder in research and development, saying there cannot be any growth without research.
“For growth to happen you need research into emerging issues and emerging technologies that is why we partner with the academic institutions, which are the home of those research and development efforts. The universities are institutions of research, that is their core area. So, partnering with them enables them to do what they can do and do it best,” Danbatta said.
Similarly, Ephraim Nwokonneya, the commission’s director of research and development, highlighted exponential growth recorded in the telecommunications sector since 2001, underscoring the need to deploy research and development to tap enormous potentials in the sector.
According to Nwokonneya, “Telecommunications have facilitated enormous growth and development in the ICT sector and we believe that such growths need to be sustained. We believe there are more potentials that we need to tap and that there are a lot of potentials in the academia that we can leverage on.”
Abdullahi Bala, vice chancellor, FUT, Minna, sought NCC’s partnership for the establishment of a centre for emerging technologies in its campus, saying the largely ICT-based centre would address issues such as cybersecurity, cryptocurrency, digital policing and forensics amongst others.
