The Nigerian Communications Commission has awarded N65m grant to 11 universities to carry out technology research that would lead to technology products.

The Executive Vice-Chairman, Prof Umar Danbatta, who made the presentation to the researchers whose proposals were accepted by the regulatory agency in Abuja on Tuesday, said that the commission was expecting prototypes to be commercialised from the exercise. Our correspondent also learnt that the process of commercialising electronic walking stick which resulted from the past research grants had reached advanced stages.

In an interview with our correspondent on the sidelines of the award ceremony, Danbatta vowed that the products from the research efforts would not be allowed to suffer in the shelf as had been the lot of many research endeavours in the country.

Danbatta said that any prototype emanating from the effort that was rated high would be translated to a product through necessary collaborations.

According to the NCC boss, the commission’s objective is to tap the capacity in the universities to solve some problems in the telecommunications industry as well as life challenges that can be tackled through new technologies.

He said, “We hope that working together, these proposals will bring about prototypes that we will be able to commercialise not in the too-distant future in order to revitalise the manufacturing sector of the economy.”