No fewer
than 56 people yesterday received grants from the 2016 Presidential
Standing Committee on Inventions and Innovations (PSCII).
Minister of Science and Technology, Dr.
Ogbonnaya Onu, who handed out cheques to the beneficiaries, said the
funds were meant to empower them to improve, mass-produce, commercialise
their products where necessary and register the patents.
The minister noted that government
undertook the initiative because success would lead to the development
of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs), which in turn would
enhance job and wealth creation in the country.
He urged the beneficiaries to deploy the
grants to improve on their creativity, inventiveness and innovation,
warning that the ministry would monitor how the funds were being used.
Onu expressed the optimism that the level
of funding to inventors would be raised when the National Research and
Innovation Council eventually becomes operational.
According to him, the 56 beneficiaries
were painstakingly selected from over 400 applications, after
authenticating their claims.
One of the beneficiaries received N10
million, and two others got N5 million and N4 million, respectively,
while 53 others were given N1 million each.
Daily Sun gathered that 188 candidates from across the country had benefited from the programme since its inception in 2005. The
highest beneficiary, Dr. Ezekiel Izuogu, thanked government for the
recognition as, according to him, “what matters is not how much but the
idea behind the grants.”
Izuogu, who claimed that his invention,
Emagnetodynamics machine, has the capacity to power vehicles without
fuel and offer uninterrupted power supply, among other things, said that
it has been patented in 139 countries.
In another development, Onu restated government’s commitment to ensuring safe and clean environment.
The minister, who spoke in Abuja while
receiving the Ambassador of Ecuador to Nigeria, Mr. Leapoldo Verdeso,
remarked that “the clean-up of the Niger Delta area is very important to
this administration and we are committed to ensure that mangrove
forest are restored and our people have access to clean water that are
around them.”
Noting the importance of space technology
is the security surveillance of oil installations, Onu thanked Ecuador
for offering to assist Nigeria in the area.
He also said that partnership between
both countries would reduce food wastage and make food available all
year round in Nigeria.
“We work closely with Federal Ministry of Environment to preserve our environment and reduce poverty” he stated.
Verdeso told the minister that his
country was interested in sharing methodology on how to detect oil
spills using satellite images and knowledge on agricultural research.
He said: “We have research institute in
the same field, we are in the same tropical zone, we have scientists
that have developed methodology on how to localize oil spills and
pollution of hydrocarbon to satellite images.”
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