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By Oluwatobi Opusunju and Chinedu James
The World Bank has so far pumped about eight million US dollars into the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU)-ICT Driven Knowledge Park (OAK-Park). The bank has pledged to fund the park beyond 2019.
The park otherwise known as the Africa Centre of Excellence (ACE) OAK-Park is a World Bank fully sponsored project aiming at creating a regionally recognized model that is driven by high quality postgraduate education for uptake and commercialisation of research and technology to advance the growth of the ICT industry.
The OAK-Park is designed to close the gaps between town and gown, said Director of the park, Prof. Sola Aderounmu. He spoke in Lagos during a tell-all interaction with journalists on the sidelines of the “One Day Academia-Industry Engagement/ Interface” symposium organized by the university in conjunction with the Nigerian Computer Society (NCS) and the Computer Professionals Registration Council of Nigeria (CPN.
Prof. Aderounmu who is also the President of NCS during the interaction reckoned that the OAU-Park which is touted as the first Nigerian university ICT park will develop both as a centre of excellence in ICT and a training hub for software engineers in Nigeria and other countries in the sub-region.
In attendance were the Vice Chancellor of OAU, Prof. Eyitope Ogunbodede, the Pro Chancellor, Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi, Chairman of Qitech Technologies Limited and Baobab Media, Dr Sola Afolabi and other dignitaries.
Aderounmu said the park is equipped with about 800 mbps bandwidth with plans in the works to up the figures to about 1.2gb so as to create an enabling environment for the uptake of research and innovation.
“The park will develop the next generation of scientists, researches, teachers, entrepreneurs and product developers in the area of ICT through appropriate practical capacity measures and by enrolling new post graduate students from Nigeria and West African countries. It will also stimulate creativity and excellence in research and innovation in ICT applicable to other fields and related to regional developmental objectives,” said Aderounmu.
“The park will expand learning opportunities for postgraduate students in all the sectors by deploying existing and new developments in ICT, for which OAU is leading in the sub region as well as leverage on the on the intellectual infrastructure and output of the university to serve as the launch pad for start-up ICT companies borne out of university’s research activities by partnering companies,’’ he added.
The park currently has two partnering companies, Chams Plc. and Sidmach Technologies with support from MainOne. But there are plans to aggressively improve its partners list.
Aderounmu argued that partnering tech companies will have the competitive advantage of proximity and direct access to the intellectual infrastructure and output of the university. Prof. Ogunbodede, the park will ensure systematic incubation of research ideas and products from OAU.
The park comprises of a twin 750-seater fully conditioned e-testing centre for computer based assessments; two telepresence facilities for online and real time communication; 7.7. TB cloud computing services. Others are a data centre servicing about 400 computer nodes; cyber security research laboratory and postgraduate research laboratories.
