 It's a pleasure to be here with you all this morning at the Lion Gadgets and Technologies Conference. Reverend Father Anole, thank you very much for your kind invitation, and I must also commend the Centre for the excellent work of innovation and creativity that is being done. I was excited to hear some of the work being done in drawing for post harvest losses and the innovations in 3D printing and so many others that Reverend Father Anole for mentioned. It's also exciting to see so many young people gather for this important conversation on technology innovation for holistic sustainable development. Development is obviously an important metric for measuring progress, but as opposed to growth it speaks to improvement in quality of life and living standards. But the conference theme today even goes further. It speaks of sustainable development. In other words the aim is not development at all costs. In fact in the words of the United Nations sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. And I think that we really need to think about what this means because effectively unless we commit to developing sustainably our futures will be at risk. So in thinking about solutions to our developmental issues we're expected to be both creative, relevant and ingenious which is what innovation is all about. But we must also be faithful stewards of our environment. We must be inclusive. Innovation must be accessible to all especially the poor and the vulnerable. So innovating for sustainable development involves creating environmentally friendly, low-cost and contextually relevant technological solutions to some of our most pressing challenges. Recently the Nigeria Climate Innovation Center concluded its climate launch path and some very innovative ideas were unveiled. One of the innovator companies new digits generates power from water. The product uses water and conforms solar cells to generate energy for electricity and cooking. It actually works by collecting water automatically from any piping channel in the house. It breaks down the water into hydrogen which is used to cook and to power the entire house without a need for batteries of any kind. Power stove energy was founded by three Nigerian young men and women okay Abdulaziz and Glory. Now what they do is that they produce a low-cost clean smokeless cook stove and power stove energy is the first clean cook stove to be fitted with self-powered internet of things cloud system to monitor in real time every day the cooking every day that cooking is done the amount of CO2 that is used and the biomass that is saved. The black carbon prevented and total electricity generated all of that is monitored on a real time basis every day. Our digital aid technology is a key part of these solutions. When we look at human capital development for example everyone is turning to technology in such of new ways to solve the same old problems. So we have health tech firms like 54 gene and I'm sure some of us are familiar with their work who are using technology to harness African genomic data and transform how we are able to study and diagnose diseases. This is so that we can grow up in a society where healthcare research can serve us better an illustrative example also of how technology innovation can be used for sustainable development. In education too COVID-19 I think has showed us just how adaptive we can be and there are a number of ed tech firms such as U-Lesson where students can take lessons and test on an app. If scaled this could revolution this could completely revolutionize how we approach challenges especially to do with access to education where in one of the worst health and economic crises in living memory and our recovery must depend entirely on innovation. We must employ never before seen methods to fight the never before seen plethora of issues before us. Whether we are discussing the delivery of social services to vulnerable communities and promoting financial inclusion or we are talking about boosting agricultural productivity and promoting security of our communities how we harness technology is absolutely crucial. The future will be decided in groups such as yours in centers such as yours where young Nigerians are actively thinking about how to deploy technology in creative ways for problem-solving. We must creatively imagine and pioneer our way out and as some of our country's best and brightest you are perfectly positioned to show us all the way. I was asked to give a word of encouragement to you today but I might say it is I who feel encouraged just by being in your presence this morning. I'm encouraged by your creative potential and we've already heard quite a bit of that from Reverend Father Angalefu. You're willing and brilliant minds and your dedication to the sustainable development of our society. So I'm certainly looking forward to the outcome of the discussions at this conference and I hope you all have a wonderful conference and you take the solutions and discussions that you have here and put them back into the real world for the betterment of us all. And I listened to I think it was the chairman of the session when he talked about the relationship between industry and university and industry and that it was a weak relationship and I agree with you entirely Chairman I think you're absolutely right that relationship is a weak one and it ought to be strengthened but it will not take just government you know a lot of these sorts of things also will require that the university system to do a bit more in terms of linking up with industry. Government is prepared just as you said government and university already have an established relationship but I think the universities also have to do much more in terms of being proactive in the links with industry. Industry as you know is interested in commerce I mean if it will make profit it will if it will make money industry is interested. So I think that a lot of the innovations we're seeing are you know are certainly profitable and can be lucrative but where government can come in isn't where there are needs for any kinds of additional support to make the research either easier or cheaper for the public to access. So I certainly look forward to the cooperation between the federal government and the University of Nigeria. I was at the University of Nigeria I believe in 2018 and we had discussions again around these issues of technology I even had a chance to look around some of the university establishment especially I'm not so sure whether I was a center I went to but there was a lot of talk about technology and innovation at the time and some supports that I believe the Chinese were giving but I'm really excited about the work that you're doing and I certainly pledge to be a part of it in whatever way you think that that would be relevant. Thank you once again for giving me the opportunity to say a few words and I wish you a very fruitful deliberations God bless you.