The Nigerian Institution of Mechanical Engineers, NIME, is seeking a collaboration between academia and industries to promote the household manufacture of machines, which would improve industrial production and constrain agricultural waste.
Dr. Funmilade Akingbagbohun, the National Chairman of the Institute, said the institution was already running a program called Industry/Academic Parley to improve partnerships since the academia is customized towards analysis and improvement, while the industry is for production.
She clarified that the institution placed focus on the parley to bridge the gap between academia and manufacturing and bring the two together for the commercialization of innovations.
Akingbagbohun announced that the institution had been able to get young engineers to develop and manufacture several machines during contests scheduled for secondary schools and tertiary institutions, and the students were usually given chances to develop prototypes of their designs for mass production.
Citing the example of toilet seats for people with disabilities currently being produced in saleable amounts, she noted that the organization had already secured an acre of land on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway for the structure of its coaching establishment to prepare young engineers in study and innovation.
She added, “Another thing our institution is doing is creating opportunities for drying of foodstuff. A member had created a machine that can dry foodstuff for packaging.
“Agricultural wastage is one of the problems that we have in Nigeria, making food security need utmost consciousness. A lot of tomatoes and onions produced by farmers, for instance, rot away. We have produced a machine to solve this issue. However, we are trying to market the machine in such a way that it will be useful for farmers to conserve their food.’’
