About 1,500 Small and Medium Scale Enterprises would be established in different parts of Nigeria within the space of one year through the 250 Research and Development (R&D) technologies/outputs developed by the Federal Institute of Industrial Research Oshodi, FIIRO.
This was made known by the Director General of the institute, Dr. Gloria Elemo in a statement prior to the Investment and Technology Week organized by the institute which commences on Tuesday, October 14, 2014.
According to her, the establishment of the enterprises would also create about 50,000 direct employment opportunities if the technologies must have been adopted by the 774 local government areas across Nigeria adding that about 75,000 entrepreneurs have benefited from output transfer spearheaded by the institute.
In order to incite the interest of higher Foreign Direct Investment, FDI, four days event would feature an exhibition of 250 Research and Development technologies.
The director added that the investment week is part of the institute’s effort to deliver more effectively on its mandate for rapid industrialization of the national economy, as well as create employment opportunities to reverse the worsening unemployment in the country.
“The overall aim of the programme is to showcase the institutes over 250 R&D outputs suitable for investment by micro, small, medium and large scale entrepreneurs to enhance job creation and improve on the national Gross Domestic Products.
“We are hoping that at least 35 technologies would be well structured and adopted in all the local governments, which is 774. So, the projection is that if every local government tries to adopt at least two technologies, we will have a total of about 2,000 jobs each.
“When you look at others that are coming in to buy into the technologies, various commercial organisations, students coming in, National Association of Nigeria Students, NANS, organizations like SURE-P and other organized sectors, we are expecting that minimum expected jobs that can come out of this catalyst should be at least 250,000. This will definitely reduce unemployment level in the country,” she said.
“We just concluded training of a number of youths on our National Techno-entrepreneurs Initiative, but our target is 2,000 youths on annual basis as part of our contribution to national development and corporate social responsibility programme, to transfer technology to them and also lead them to proper infrastructure that will definitely establish them on the field.
