The Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) has emphasized the need for the Federal Government to deliberately create policies that will change the orientation of students towards technology driven courses.
Dr Musiliu Agoro, NSE Chairman in Lagos State, stated this at a practical robotics training for secondary school students on Sunday in Lagos.
According to Agoro, artificial intelligence and robotics are interwoven and there is need to explore their advantages for Nigeria’s rapid industrialisation.
“If we can embrace artificial intelligence significantly and robotics in Nigeria, it will help us to leap from third world country that we are being classified to probably first world.
“And that is what has helped Singapore; we were virtually at the same level with them in 1960 when we had our independence but they have leveraged more on artificial intelligence and robotics, including China too, and they are now being regarded as first world countries.
“So, if Nigerian government can encourage the citizens to embrace artificial intelligence and robotics, it will lead to significant development in the country and eradicate all these issues of kidnappings because people will now be productively engaged, our younger ones will no longer resort to crime to make ends meet.
“My candid advice to the Federal Government is that they should create conducive environment for our younger ones to pursue career paths in engineering technology because now there is high unemployment rate and a lot of companies are leaving Nigeria.
He said that the training was part of NSE mandate to expose young children to robotics, artificial intelligence and basic engineering.
“The world today is knowledge driven and developed countries that are making global waves make their citizens focus more on technology based courses like aeronautical engineering, artificial intelligence, cyberspace, robotics etc.
“Most of our own younger citizens here tend to want to go to social based courses or humanities and the arts. So, we want them to have a rethink by organising the workshop to rekindle their interest to pursue career paths in any of the engineering fields.
“We want to make sure that we have capable hands to take over from us as engineers to replace us in future so we want to impress on them the need to develop their communication skills and learn to work as a team,” he said.
The program was organised by the NSE in collaboration with Airbus Foundation, The Little Engineer (TLE) and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) STEM METS for 10 secondary schools in Lagos.
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