The recent COVID-19 pandemic experience has stressed the need to continue investing in research and innovation to find lasting solutions to current and emerging problems
The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Prof. Umar Danbatta, made the assertion in his keynote address at this year’s virtual edition of the Nigeria Innovation Summit.
Considering that assertion, he explained that the Commission has been supporting research efforts in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions as it awarded N345.4 million as research grants to academia.
The body also confers professorial honors on two Nigerians to drive innovation and promote local content development in the telecom sector.
Earlier, the EVC, represented by the Director, Public Affairs at the NCC, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, said that for innovation to thrive as the anchor for speeding up economic growth post-COVID-19, a robust broadband infrastructure upon which ICT innovations will ride is a necessity and an urgent one at that.
He further stated: “To date, the Commission has awarded the sum of N345.4 million as research grants to academia and as the endowment of professorial chairs in two Nigerians to drive innovation through promoting local content development in the telecom sector.
“We have also empowered the Nigerian youths by promoting their ingenuity and innovation on developing locally-relevant technology solutions.
The latest of such was the NCC Virtual Hackathon, where the Commission gave out N9 million in grant to three top tech startups with the most promising innovative solutions for COVID-19.”
Danbatta said: “During my first term representing, we placed emphasis on broadband to drive innovation, and hopes to take broadband penetration to 70% by 2025 follows the new target in the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NBBP), 2020-2025. Through effective regulatory efforts, the NCC has been able to deepen connectivity in the country
Under my stewardship at the Commission, we realized that infrastructure gaps existed around the country impairing networks performance, and leading to poor quality of service with the steady increase in telecom subscribers, the Commission decided on a robust telecom/ICT infrastructure to meet up with growing demands for improved Quality of Service”
“It became imperative for us at the Commission to introduce drastic measures at ensuring Nigerians receive value for money.
“We intensified our focus on the established key performance indicators (KPIs) for quality of service by instituting a regime of rigorous and continuous monitoring of the networks to ensure that they operate in tandem with set parameters.
“In the long term, the Commission’s initiative to license Infrastructure Companies (INFRACOs) to bridge existing gaps will further improve not only broadband penetration but the quality of broadband experience.
Today we have six (6) licensed INFRACOs, one in each geo-political zone of the country, with Lagos State receiving special status because of its commercial centrality to the country. The seventh license for the North-Central region is processed.
“On the InfraCos, the Commission is the begining finalizing the six Infracos Counterpart Funding Agreement to galvanise the full rollout of broadband infrastructure on an Open Access Model (OAM) aimed at enhancing digital transformation and this will ensure Point of Access in each of the 774 local governments in the country.
The result of this initiative is that apart from meeting and surpassing the 30 percent broadband penetration in December 2018, following the NBP 2013-2018 target, NCC increased broadband penetration from less than 6 percent in 2015 to 43.30 percent by August 2020.
“This translates to 82, 653,247 broadband subscriptions in the country as of August 2020. These measures have been very instrumental to the emergence and survival of SMEs that have had to ride on the backbone of telecoms infrastructure during this pandemic.
“We all are witnesses to the disruptions caused by the Covid19 pandemic to the global economy, and it is noteworthy to emphasize the important role ICT has played since this outbreak.
“Many of us are forced to work from home; government services have moved to online portals; our kids now attend virtual classes; lectures and conferences are now virtual; e-commerce has seen a significant uptick and boom globally; online payment for goods and services have now increased threefold; logistics and delivery businesses have seen huge surge demanded their services.
“The above services require fast broadband and reliable means of connectivity and the NCC has continued to work assiduously with our Stakeholders in ensuring that the nation’s ICT infrastructure can meet the increased demand for connectivity.
“As important as all these are, questions about the safety of our cyberspace. With the preponderance of activities now happening online, the vulnerabilities of cyberspace have increased significantly.
It is instructive to note that NCC adheres strictly with ITU guidelines for the global telecoms industry.
We have officials at the Commission tasked with monitoring global trends to ensure that NCC is abreast of the changes and the emergence of new technologies”.
The EVC also said that the Commission placed emphasis on growing the digital economy in partnerships with sister agencies under the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.
“Recognizing the need to entrench digital economy thinking in its operational activity, the Commission created the Digital Economy Department principally for implementing programs and policies aimed at fully supporting and promoting the national digital economy agenda of the Federal Government”, he added.
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