The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) will commit about N10 billion to the on ongoing Research and Technology Park Project at the Federal University of Technology (FUTO), Owerri, Vice-Chancellor of the school, Prof. Chigozie Asiabaka, has said.

He disclosed this while conducting newsmen around TETFund projects in the institution on Saturday in Owerri.

According to him, TETFund has released the initial N1 billion for the park project which is a recipe for technological growth.

The FUTO Owerri VC said: “We are working on a Research and Technology Park; and TETFund has committed the initial N1 billion into the project which will cost more than N10 billion.

“A Research and Technology Park basically is where we partner with industry, the private sector and to do research for development.

“In a fully developed technology park, you see industry, theory and practice marry.

“We do the triple part of it: get research; get it patented; get it commercialised and when we complete the project, it will be an industrial hub.

“This is because no country can develop without technology, and Technology Park is the key.”

He said that when completed, the park would have a research laboratory and incubator laboratory which would test research findings before industries could take them.

Asiabaka said that industries would always be available to develop research findings into products.

The vice-chancellor said that the park would also have researchers’ residence, banks and a helipad.

Asiabaka said the Engineering complex in the school built by TETFund had been adjudged the best in the country by the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREEN).

He said that aside infrastructural development, FUTO had benefited immensely from capacity building in terms of conferences, Masters and PhD training for its staff.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports there are about 20 TETFund projects in the school such as faculty buildings, lecture theatres, classrooms, hostels and six coaster buses.

Others are the Centre of Entrepreneurship Studies, School of Management Technology complex, School of Engineering complex, among others. (NAN)

•Photo shows FUTO, Owerri, VC, Prof. Chigozie Asiabaka.

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