The University of Ibadan and Opolo Global Innovation Limited have signed a Memorandum of Agreement to create a platform that supports and encourages innovation and creativity.
Under the Agreement, the partners will harness new thinking and provide resources to encourage innovation and resourcefulness among students. The project will promote social enterprises, provide solutions to social problems as well as provide revenue in perpetuity for the University, the researchers and the participants.
The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Kayode O. Adebowale, FAS, mni, assured that the Memorandum of Agreement will be a very active one adding that the University will render all necessary assistance to ensure the success of the project.
He stated that the University had consistently encouraged entrepreneurship, skills acquisition and innovation. He noted that the encouragement of entrepreneurship has been identified as the way for universities to impact the society meaningfully.
Members of the UI Entrepreneurship Hub had created financial Apps, farming apps as well as special reading glasses for the visually impaired among others.
The Chairman of Opolo Global Innovation Limited, Dr Segun Aina, OFR, had earlier noted that Nigerians can make the country work. He said his organisation seeks to turn the country’s ivory towers into a society that solves societal problems and create wealth by creating global solutions to common global problems.
Dr Aina who is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Oodua Group of Companies as well as a member of the UI Research Foundation/ Co-Chair of UI Think Tank noted that Africa has a lot of opportunities disguised as challenges and that Opolo Global Innovation seeks to create African “Unicorn ” companies that will be worth over one billion dollars in a few years of operation.
Opolo is an innovation enabler, incubator and accelerator. The University of Ibadan is the 5th Hub to be created and the company seeks to create at least 40 hubs before the end of 2023.
