Abuja – Prof. Mohammed Jibrin, Director-General, National Board for Technology Incubation says the board’s operations in states are based predominantly on each state’s natural endowments and features.
Jubrin disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria in an interview on Monday in Abuja.
He said that before any centre was opened in any state, diligent analysis and research was carried out to know the main abundant natural resources of such state.
“When you look at the state of the federation you discover that each of the state is having its natural endowment as a peculiarity.
“So the centre is fashioned in a way to take full benefit of their natural endowment and we use our technology incubation programme called test mixers to do the test that will determine the peculiarity of states.
“For example, when you look at Kano, you discover that it is an agrarian state, therefore food processing, post harvest processing and metal fabrication of machines that are used in food processing are the predominant activities there.
“When you look at technology incubation centre in Lagos, you discover that ICT is predominant in view of the commercial activities there, provision of software solutions is the main predominant activities,’’ Jubrin said.
Jubrin said this made it possible to train entrepreneurs who were already skilled in the areas they had chosen, which would guarantee that their businesses had a high percentage of success.
According to him, the operations of the centres are divided into sectors and each of the state endowment can fall into any of the categories.
He said that there were more than 10 sectorial areas, including fabrication group, energy saving, waste conversion, and chemicals processing group.
Others are groups divided into solid minerals, alternative energy, pharmaceuticals and veterinary, food production and processors.
Speaking on how the trainees are enrolled into the centre, he said a team was constituted to scrutinise the applications and the most viable applications were considered.
“We have what we call pre-incubation which is about preparation of visibility studies to ensure that a particular business idea can be translated into business that will do well in the market.
“Apart from that, we have feasibility studies carried out and business plan preparation completed within the six months before they move into the centre to start real incubation programme, ‘’he said.
NAN reports that the board was setup to pursue the commercialisation of research and development results from universities and other research institutions.
These researches include local innovative efforts that can be translated into knowledge-driven sustainable enterprises. (NAN)
NBTI: Centre considers endowment of states for projects -DG
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