The National Centre for Technology Management (NACETEM), has urged that Science, Technology and Innovation (STI), should be used to address development at the grassroots level.
Dr John Omimakinde, Overseeing Director General of NACETEM, made this known in his address at the two-day STI Management Forum it organised in Ile-Ife on Thursday.
He said for a long time, attention was focused on urban development at the expense of rural advancement, which led to issues of rural-urban migration, poverty, neglect, diseases, among others.
Omimakinde said that this has continued to stunt growth and development at the grassroots level, thereby making rural dwellers extremely vulnerable.
“While many solutions may have been proffered to ameliorate these challenges in the past, there still seems not to have been any significant improvement.
“For this reason, it is imperative to look at grassroots development with a different lens so as to re-interrogate the identified issues and see how best they can be addressed,’’ he said.
According to the D-G, it is in view of this that NACETEM decided to beam its searchlight on STI, as a panacea to the issue of underdevelopment at the grassroots.
He said, “we believe strongly that STI holds the key to the present and future development of any society.
“It plays a fundamental role in wealth creation, improvement of the quality of life and real economic growth and transformation in the society.’’
Omimakinde said that Ssakeholders in the STI ecosystem should realise that escape from poverty and other anti-development challenges was predicated on investment in STI education.
He said NACETEM considered it highly imperative to continue to build the capacity of people in this regard so as to aid sustainable development using STI.
Omimakinde said that the existing vacuum needed to be filled by the deployment of STI at the grassroots and one way to do that was to mobilise people through education, empowerment and enlightenment.
The NACETEM D-G added that for that to be done, they needed to be deliberate and intentional.
He said they intended to be resolute about the cause through systematic and conscious efforts, geared towards educating, empowering and enlightening those saddled with the responsibility of using STI to advance development at the grassroots level.
“Our gathering here is one of such deliberate efforts to brainstorm on how we can collectively adopt STI as a veritable tool of development,’’ he said.
Mr Haastrup Olatunji, Chairman of the Governing Board of NACETEM, said the 2022 edition of the STI Management Forum was specifically tailored towards grassroots development.
He said this was because the global pandemic left the world in chaos and the worst hit appears to be the rural dwellers who have access to little or no basic amenities.
“To guarantee a sustainable and just way forward, it is crucial to harness the power of STI to address almost if not all the challenges people at the grassroots are experiencing.
“ With many challenges facing our nation, we cannot afford to leave anyone behind in finding lasting solutions to such issues.
“Nigeria being a rapidly developing economy, must, as a matter of urgency, begin to drive her development with STI,’’ Olatunji said.
“ In fact, this will bring development to the supposedly unreached society quicker than we may think it is possible,’’ he said.
The theme of the forum is: ‘The Roles of STI in Development at the Grassroots Level’.
