Why we’re using local capacity to impact society —NCC

The Executive Vice Chairman of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Prof. Umar Garuba Danbatta has said the commission is committed to utilizing the capacity in the academia through research activities and innovation to impact on businesses and society.

Prof Danbatta stated this in Abuja while inaugurating the Inter-Agency Committee for the Evaluation of 2018 Research proposals from the academia.

He said the Commission was committed to this objective because finding local solutions to the challenges of the industry is a policy so dear to the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

He explained that the inauguration of the committee was vital to the telecommunications industry and also very valuable to the academic community by way of adding value to research output.

‘‘Our objective has been to deliberately utilize the capacity resident in the academia and to redirect it towards getting involved in research activities that can impact on businesses and society leading to the development of new products and services for the entire industry.

‘‘We are also of the strong opinion that for an industry that has recorded globally appreciable growth over the years and a major contributor to the country’s GDP, the sector has capacity to contribute to the expansion of knowledge in the academia and consequently benefit from such contributions’’, he said.

Nigeria re-elected to ITU council membership
By Zakariyya Adaramola
Nigeria has been reelected into the council of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
The election was the highpoint of the Plenipotentiary Conference currently holding in Dubai United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The 20th Plenipotentiary Conference of the Council, also reelected   ITU Secretary-General, Houlin Zhao, for another term of four years, a statement said yesterday.
Nigeria and the countries elected to the Council will begin another four-year term from January 2019.
The 153-year old ITU, is an agency of the United Nations (UN), set up to coordinate telecommunication operations and services throughout the world.
Originally founded in 1865, as the International Telegraph Union, the ITU is the oldest existing international organisation and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
Nigeria became a member of ITU on November 4, 1961.
The ITU is governed by the Plenipotentiary Conference, which is the supreme organ of the Union, which elects its senior officials, the 48 members of its Council and its 12 members of the Radio Regulations Board.
Meanwhile, Zhao, an ICT engineer, who has served in a variety of senior management positions at ITU, will begin his second, and last four-year term on January 1, 2019.

“We continue to connect the unconnected. We are strengthening partnerships to implement our common vision of a connected world, where information and communication technology is a source for good for everyone everywhere” he said in the statement.