The Nigerian Society of Engineers, ikeja Branch new Chairman, Engr Tosin Ogunmola has set a bold agenda to focus on welfare of members in the next two years. Among the goal target is the development of young engineers, enhancement and promotion of entrepreneurial ideals, and also to sustain the Branch heritage,
In his address, he traced the rich heritage of the Branch to its founding fathers who set out to what has now become its motto “building a viable engineering culture”.
For over 27 years, Ogunmola said, the Branch has uphold this ethic and successive chairmen of the Branch have left it better than they met it. It is on this premise that he has set out a building on this foundation during the next two year with goal of taking “Engineering Further with Leadership, Excellence, Transformation and Sustainability.”
Ogumola said his tenure will be build around empowerment of members by molding the Branch as a value center that takes the lead in driving a state-wide Engineering Development Plan.
While unveiling his plan, he said his administration’s strategic action plan in realizing the objectives is built on the following novel initiatives:
NSE-Ikeja Engineering Innovation Hub: A state-of-the-art Research & Development (R&D) center that will aim at collaboration with technical partners and funding partners, resources are pulled together for technologies and equipment
The Branch also planned to embark on in-house training for innovators and enable them improve on the innovations until a scalable product is developed out of the innovations. It shall be a refining hub to move the innovations from their raw states to finished products that are commercially viable. This will require taking the innovators in the numbers available funds could accommodate per time and working with them through the refining process alongside other components such as research and training, etc, etc.
Some of the projects earmarked are the NSE Ikeja Online Engineering Resources Portal, a platform hosted on the Branch’s website to showcase and project the profiles of our members for employment, contract and consultancy jobs. Each profile is to give spotlights of each member’s Curriculum Vitae, Past Projects, Competencies, etc, etc. It expected that the platform will open and widening opportunities for members.
The Branch also planned to develop a Strategic Partnership Enabling Engineering Development (SPEED) Initiative. The SPEED initiative is envisioned as a platform to facilitate an inter-sector Integrated Engineering Development Plan comprising of modules in Engineering education, Engineering practice and Engineering policies. The SPEED initiative shall bring to the table both individual and institutional partners across the three stakeholders of the Academia, Industry and Government. Though it will be driven by the Branch, SPEED will have a stand-alone functional administration that will drive the SPEED Action Plan of activities as facilitated by the Branch to include collaborative works on the identified gaps in the different stakeholders’ sectors towards enhancing specific parameters of Engineering Development in the country and it will have a Secretariat headed by a Director-General.
The Branch also aimed to be at the driving seat of advancing Engineering development in Lagos State by developing indices around the Engineering state of the State, developing practical Engineering solutions to thematic challenges bedevilling the State and putting forward a Compendium of the Lagos State Engineering State as a working tool of engagement with the State Government and the Private Sector in midwifing projects to address the identified gaps and create a measurement framework to track progress in Engineering development in the State. To this end, the Branch shall be instituting a Biennial Engineering State of the State Address. And to drive this initiative, study groups are already set up, working on four different sectors of the State and four specific challenges in the State.
In addition to these flagship initiatives, the Branch shall be spearheading Engineering advocacy in collaboration with the other NSE Branches, NSE Divisions and other relevant Organizations on Engineering Standards, State-of-Art Industrial Workshops, NYSC-Industry Mapping.
In addition to this, the Branch under his administration will revive the Young Engineers Forum to support the dreams, aspirations and creativity of our young ones and have their projects flow into the framework of the Engineering Innovation Hub.
To achieve the above and many others, the Branch will create a Network of Partners drafted from the Engineering industry, international professional associations, the media, the technology hubs, indigenous professional and economic hubs such as the chambers of commerce, development partners, passionate individuals, etc, etc.
The new Chairman used the opportunity to announce that a sum of #100M Naira over the next 9 months to undertake the implementation of the initiatives. Ogunmola concluded that his administration is poised to play its part and play it well in driving collaboration and strategic partnership that will enable our administration realize its noble objective to TAKE ENGINEERING FURTHER.
Meanwhile, a Senior Lecturer, Department of Industrial and Production Engineering, University of Ibadan, Prof. Victor Oladokun, has stated that the country needs to adopt an engineering growth model.
Speaking on the theme: ‘Engineering Development: The Catalyst for National Development.’ Oladokun said history has revealed that viable economic growth model could be achieved through industrialisation which he stated was a product of technologies, “and application of technological breakthroughs only made by engineering development.”
He explained that the current economic challenges hold huge opportunities for technicians, technologists, and engineers in the engineering family to showcase their relevance.
Continuing, Oladokun said: “The challenges hold wealth creation opportunities for us if we start turning our ideas and inventions into marketable products and services and in the process prove to the nation that indeed engineering development remains the catalyst for national development and the only path to sustainable economic growth.
“The effectiveness of engineering, technology and innovation as catalyst for wealth creation and transformational economic growth at both national and individual levels is vividly demonstrated in the way Silicon Valley, California, United States has changed the world.
“Meanwhile the impact of the sharp fall in commodity prices and COVID-19 resulting in the slowdown of some major economies has exposed the fragility and vulnerability of the Nigerian mono commodity based economy.
CONCEPTION TO ACTUALIZATION – END OF TENURE SPEECH BY ENGR. DR. MRS FUNMILADE AKINGBAGBOHUN.