The Executive Director, Development Information Network, Bankole Olubamise, has urged the Federal Government to explore advancements in technology as a means of enhancing national development.
Olubamise who spoke in Lagos, said that the people and leaders must make effective use of technological advances to ensure successful and sustainable development.
"Technological literacy has to be emphasised in the schools and encouraged throughout the country. The effective use of technology means matching solutions in search of problems to problems in search of solutions; research laboratories must focus on the specifi c needs of the country. In developing countries, this means emphasising applied research and development, while maintaining a core of basic researchers who can follow and participate in global advances," he said.
Olubamise said that in the industrialised countries, technological advancement included scientifi c, technological and social specialists, working together.
"Materials engineering needs to interact with biology, computer science with linguistics, medicine with sociology, and engineering with economics and the law," he said.
Olubamise said the concept of matching local solutions to local problems also applied to education and training, where important human issues must be fully addressed, to promote the successful transfer of technology.
"Prepackaged knowledge for the use of technology is of little use in developing countries like Nigeria. To be absorbed, new knowledge must be grounded in what is already understood with technological concepts linked to local culture and knowledge," he said.
Olubamise, however, reiterated that technology was not a package that could be bought off the shelf and become immediately productive; it is a cumulative process of learning. "The process of diffusion implementation is greatly strengthened if there is feedback from the users of technology to generators of knowledge," he said.
Olubamise further said that the nation's education system must allow students to develop a good understanding of the system, the ability to discuss and manipulate it, and envisioning its functions from many viewpoints.
"The use of tools for managing information complexity needs to become part of schooling for an ever-increasing portion of the population."
Olubamise urged the Federal Government to prepare the populace by using education to get them to become conversant with advancements in technological innovations.
"To prepare the populace to use technological advancement requires a combination of skills development, practise with complexity, and the development of adaptive problem-solving capabilities," he added.
