The executive vice chairman and chief executive of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, has inaugurated a 15-member evaluation committee for the assessment of the 2020 telecommunications-based research from academics in Nigerian tertiary institutions.
The committee, chaired by Mu’azu Bashir, a professor of Computer and Control Engineering and head of Computer Engineering Department, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, was inaugurated at the NCC’s head office in Abuja recently.
During the inauguration, Danbatta said the initiative attested to the commission’s commitment towards encouraging the development of indigenous innovative solutions that impact not only the telecom industry/ICT sector positively but also the nation as a whole.
“We want to continuously support research projects that can lead to the development of new products and services in the industry as the key enabler of the nation’s digital economy. We are all aware of the appreciable contributions of the Nigerian telecommunication sector to the growth of our GDP (Gross Domestic Product) over the years, which peaked at 14.53 per cent in second quarter of 2020,” he said.
Danbatta, stated that the commission understands that funding research and development is fundamental to ensuring that the needs of consumers are properly anticipated and met while enabling sustainable economic growth. He added that the Digital Economy-based Research Innovations project underlines the importance of funding R&D.
According to the EVC, for the year 2020, the request for proposals was tailored to providing innovations and solving challenges in five emerging areas of technology. These include innovative clean energy technology; 5G deployment in Nigeria; Internet of Things (IoT), low power Wide Area Network (WAN) technology; advanced methods of Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) management and test mechanism as well as monitoring and localisation of drones.