Category: Education & Innovation

The goal of education and innovation in Nigeria is envisioned to be ruled by true wisdom and self-consciousness. The Nigerian innovative spirit coupled with humane values is acknowledged in its dynamic and universal applicability.

 

Imoh Essien Wins 2016 Maltina Teacher of the Year Award

Computer, Basic Sciences and Physical Education teacher from Special Education Centre for Exceptional Children, Uyo in Akwa Ibom State, Mr. Imoh Essien, has emerged the 2016 Maltina Teacher of the Year.

The Maltina Teacher of the Year Award, instituted by the Nigerian Breweries-Felix Ohiwerei Education Trust Fund, was aimed at restoring the pride and dignity of the teaching profession and recognising the all-encompassing role of teachers in nation building.

Imoh Essien, who started nurturing the desire to become a teacher from childhood, was able to achieve the feat due to his ability to clearly define and demonstrate what it means to impact knowledge to the Nigerian child.

Having keenly competed with 34 teachers across the federation, he was, at a grand reception held at Oriental Hotel, Lagos, adjudged the best teacher of the year by the panel of independent jurists, headed by the Founder/Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Values in Leadership, Prof Pat Utomi.

For this, he was rewarded with ₦1 million overall prize, in addition to ₦500,000 he received as state champion from Akwa Ibom.

He would also be getting the sum of ₦1 million every year for a period of five years, a training programme abroad and block of six classrooms for his school.

An English teacher from Borno State, who was the first runner-up last year, Mohammed Binta Lawan, repeated the feat this year, while Ogwu Patrick from Government Day Secondary School, Adankolo in Lokoja, Kogi State, came third.

Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji Elected Vice President Of International Students Affairs At Harvard University

Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji has been declared the Vice President, International Students’ Affairs of the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School Students’ Government.

Toyosi, a Mason Fellow and Candidate in the 2017 Class of the Mid-Career Master in Public Administration Programme at Harvard emerged winner after an election among candidates from China, India and Nigeria among other countries.

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AUN Builds Solar Oven & Chicken Tractor For Rural Dwellers

Adamawa State-based American University of Nigeria (AUN) have built a solar oven and chicken tractor – a wood and electricity-free oven for the benefit of rural dwellers that depend solely on firewood for cooking.

Instead of felling trees and encouraging desert encroachment, the students decided to make use of the abundant sun in the state. The oven and chicken tractor were fabricated using a design first developed at a Kenyan refugee camp.

Working under the supervision of AUN’s former Director of Sustainability, Professor Charles Reith, Mr Rotimi Ogundijo and Mr. Matthew Abedoh, all of the Sustainability Unit of the university, the students used recycled cardboard, masking tape, glue and aluminium foil to construct the solar oven. Each oven took them about 45 minutes to construct and it cooks really fast.

The Chicken tractors were made from scrap metal and pieces of discarded chicken wire (poultry netting). A Chicken tractor is a screened-in box or portable bottomless cage or pen used by organic farmers to prepare soil for planting. The chickens are confined in the tractor and they eat all the weeds, bugs, scratch the soil and fertilize it with their guano or faeces (which is a highly effective fertilizer due to its exceptionally high content of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium essential for plant growth.) This is one of many ways organic growers fertilize their farms without using harmful and expensive chemicals.

Omotoyosi Craig Honoured With Renewable Energy Research Excellence Award (RERE) 2016 In South Africa

Omotoyosi Craig has been honoured with the Young Researcher of the Year Award 2016 in South Africa. The award, which is dubbed Renewable Energy Research Excellence Award (RERE), is jointly organised by Renewable Energy Centre of Research and Development (RECORD), and South African National Energy Association (SANEA).

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MOUAU Emerge AfDB Selected Incubation Centre For ENABLE Nigeria Programme

Due to impressive records of its research interventions and findings, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike (MOUAU) Abia State, has been chosen by the African Development Bank (AfDB) as an Incubation Centre for the Empowering Novel Agribusiness Ltd Employment, ENABLE Nigeria Programme.

The ENABLE Youth Programme is being implemented in partnership with the Bank, the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), and the Federal Government of Nigeria. It is a Pan African Youth Entrepreneurship initiative, whose mission is to provide jobs for youths through the training of a new set of Agribusiness managers that would impact positively in making Africa to be food sufficient and attain food security.

The selection of MOUAU for the ENABLE Nigeria Programme was made known when the Coordinator of the IITA Cassava- Wheat Management Centre, Dr. Alfred Dixon, led a team from the IITA to the University and met with the Vice Chancellor, Professor Francis Otunta.

The Vice Chancellor, whose deputy, Professor Maduebibisi Iwe, received the visiting IITA Team, said the University was elated by the development, pledging that all the needful would be done sustainably to ensure the success of the Programme. He also noted that Agribusiness has been given top recognition as a very crucial sector towards addressing youth unemployment.

Dixon said that the ENABLE Nigeria Programme implementation whose preparations and appraisal mission in Nigeria, was effected between July 10 and July 29, 2016, will begin in January next year.

A member of the team, Miss Oneye Olonaje, who explained that the ENABLE Youth Nigeria Programme will last for three years and is targeted at raising 1,000 agric entrepreneurs in each of the 36 states in the country and the Federal Capital Territory FCT, added that it is expected to create 222,000 jobs every year.

Olonaje said that the programme is also aimed at changing the mindset of youths to begin to see agriculture as a viable business venture, adding that two other institutions – Federal Universities of Agriculture Markurdi and Abeokuta, were also chosen along with MOUAU as the Programme Incubation Centres and partners.

These three universities and partners she said are to create the enabling environment for the training to support the development of agribusiness curriculum.