No fewer than 11 teams are expected to present their innovations to top government functionaries, captains of industry, corporate investors, researchers, students and members of the public at the maiden edition of the Professor Oluwatoyin Innovative Challenge (POIC), scheduled to commence on September 3, 2019 at the University of Lagos (UNILAG).
The challenge, named after Professor Oluwatoyin Temitayo Ogundipe, the Vice Chancellor of UNILAG and scholar in the field of Botany, was designed to cater for emerging talents in a bid to build young entrepreneurs, make them locally relevant and globally competitive in their chosen areas of interest.
Addressing newsmen in Lagos ahead of the grand finale of the challenge, the chairperson of POIC committee, Dr. Kehinde Kemabonta explained that the challenge, which is in its final stage, entails groups of young, ingenious Nigerian students who will come forward with ideas and innovations that could proffer solutions to several human and environmental problems as well as to advance the course of research in Science and Technology.
She made known that no fewer than 500 students from across Nigeria applied, noting that the number was pruned down to 25 and later 11, out of which three would emerge as winners at the grand finale of the challenge.
“Entries submitted either as an individual or group from students of different Universities including University of Port-Harcourt, UNILAG, Federal University of Technology Akure and the University of Benin, among others were adjudged by independent jurists from members of the academia from within and outside UNILAG as well as professional bodies and captains of industry,” she said.
Three finalists with the best creative and workable scientific ideas to solve societal problems, according to her, will be rewarded with a sum of N1million each in addition to mentoring by experts in their chosen areas for the purpose of changing their ideas to commercial and profitable ventures.
The event, she said, will key into the research blueprint of the University of Lagos as it has continued to demonstrate commitment to producing solution providers who will successfully address increasingly complex global challenges with the setting up of an entrepreneurship and skill development centre.
“As such, we are taking entrepreneurship advocacy to our youths in order to inspire them so that the entrepreneurial geniuses in them would be awakened.
“So, the students only need to be identified and given all the support they require to have their passions blossom. This initiative is committed to doing this and we won’t stop until our products make it to Forbes list of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs,” she added.
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