Members of the ICT/Digital Economy Thematic Group of the TETFundNg Research and Development Standing Committee led by its coordinator, Prof. Bashir Galadanci visited the Eko-Konnect secretariat on Tuesday 24 November 2020.

Professor Galadanci in his opening remarks explained that the visit was part of a fact-finding mission by the group to better understand the challenges research practice in Nigeria was experiencing and to identify competent organisations with the relative ICT expertise to offer ideas and solutions to the alleviate the problems.

Welcoming the committee, The Managing Director, Mr Owen Iyoha presented the activities being undertaken by Eko-Konnect to facilitate research and scholarly output and the platforms available for researchers to utilise to increase their productivity these included the eduID.ng Federation, Identity Management, National Repository, journal publishing and e-learning platforms that would also help digital transformation in the country as a result of the impact of Covid-19 on the research and education sector. Mr Iyoha went on to describe the benefits of eduroam for wi-fi mobility of researchers locally and internationally and his anticipation of eduroam being widely available in Nigeria 2021 even as Eko-Konnect prepares to join eduGAIN the global inter federation service that connects identity federations around the world which would lead to greater access to services, resources and collaborators for the Nigerian research community.

At the end of the 3-hour meeting the committee thanked the Eko-Konnect team for all it was doing and had accomplished and Prof. Galadanci expressed his optimism that Eko-Konnect would be part of the Research Development Foundation that was in the process of being established. Dr Gloria Olotu ended the meeting with closing prayers.