By Felix Khanoba
The Organising Committee for the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) National Research Fair/Exhibition has reported receiving more than 1,600 submissions for the first edition of the event.
In addition, the committee has also extended deadline for submitting concept notes by one week.
Speaking to reporters in Abuja, the committee’s chairman, Engr. Umar Bindri, urged Nigerians who have not yet submitted their proposals to take advantage of the extension.
The event, scheduled from November 17 to 22, aims to bridge the gap between research, innovation, and the marketplace.
Engr. Bindri explained that the five-day fair will offer a platform for researchers, innovators, manufacturers, investors, venture capitalists, and policymakers to showcase their products to potential markets.
He said the fair will support and promote homegrown technologies to emerge as businesses and solution providers, which ultimately will reduce the dependence on foreign technologies, save foreign exchange, create massive jobs and generate wealth, especially for the country’s teeming youth population.
He also reaffirmed TETFund’s commitment to backing innovative research with economic development potential.
The AUTHORITY reports that the event will display practical research outcomes and scalable prototypes, connecting them with investors and entrepreneurs for commercialization.
“We have two categories of submissions. One is the formal institutions: the universities, polytechnics, research institutes, colleges of education. The second is the informal institutions like the pantakers, creative people.
“The submissions in the formal one is around 1,300. The informal one is around 300. So we have between 1,500 to 1,600. But we have extended by another week. So by next week we are going to do the final close down.
“We want to make sure that submission must be formal. We don’t want somebody to come to the gate with his invention begging, saying he is from your village. We cannot make progress using those primitive ways of doing things,” Bindri said.
On what makes this fair stand out from others, he said: “When you see a winning technology, we bring the intellectual property people through this committee to help you. We will bring the funders to see it and convince them so that they can invest.”
The panel overseeing the fair is a sub-committee of TETFund’s National Research Fund Screening and Monitoring Committee (NRFS&MC).
Prof. Hayward Mafuyai, Chairman of the NRFS&MC and a member of the TETFair Organising Committee, shared that the focus is on identifying “low-hanging technological fruits” that are market-ready.
He said patent lawyers will also be present at the fair to provide guidance on securing patents and commercializing innovations.
“”Hopefully, we are looking forward that some agreements would be struck. And that some of those good products that can go straight into production will be struck. And if that happens, we will be making another step in the right direction, particularly at this time that we need all sources of revenue to be generated, jobs to be created,” Mafuyai added.
