Barely eight months after the authorities of the University of Nigeria set-up “Roar Nigeria Hub”, a pilot version of its proposed science park, Huawei, a foremost Chinese Information Technology company, has established its training academy in the university.

Huawei is the first IT company to move into the temporary site of the science park project, which is expected to attract over 400 companies scouting for research and innovation from the university.

Already there are five innovative groups under the mentorship of Roar Nigeria Hub. Among the groups is AGROMESS group, which developed an application that helps farmers solve the problem of wastage of agricultural products.

The app helps to identify parts of the country that have surplus agro products and link them to areas where the products are scarce.

The PAYMISO group developed automated fast and service escrow for peer-to-peer crypto-currency goods and services exchange, whileALPHOTAEI FARMS is concerned with providing modular cassava processing plants for rural farmers and connecting them to the market.

TRILLERAPP connects people to fun locations in their areas, while PEEPSCREEN group developed enterprise marketing tool to serve business owners using reward-based mobile app.

Prof. Benjamin Ozumba, Vice Chancellor of the university, said the arrival of Huawei was a good beginning for his vision of building a “smart university” that would drive the transition of Nigeria to a knowledge-based economy.

He said that more IT companies had indicated interest to set-up their offices in the university in 2018

“I can assure you that our university is a treasure trove. We have over 40,000 students who are prone to innovation”, Ozumba said while commissioning the Huawei Academy on Friday

The Vice Chancellor, who recently commissioned laptop assembly plant in the university, said his target was to stimulate innovation culture among staff and students of the university.

Yemi Joseph, a Senior Solutions Architect of Huawei, explained that the purpose of establishing the academy was to ensure that Nigerian students were guided to develop the capacity for building ICT infrastructure at their undergraduate level.

“Our target is to use the centre to bring up talents that can be mentored to be innovative,” Joseph said.

He further explained that students who would enrol into the academy would be exposed to Huawei professionals for mentorship, and they would be certified after their training.

The academy, according to him, would be developed to benefit students from other universities. “This is going to bring employment and start-ups for young innovators,” he said.

Simon Zhang, Channel Service Project Manager of Huawei, said his organisation, which has been operating in Nigeria for the past 18 years was committed to helping students master technology skills.