FG to Assist ICT Innovator Develop Anti-plagiarism Software

Dele Ogbodo in Dubai

The federal government through the National Information Technology Agency (NITDA), has pledged to assist a young Nigerian, ICT innovator and startup, Mr. Temitope Oguntade, bring into fruition his anti-plagiarism software.

While inspecting the works of fourteen other Nigerian ICT startups, at the ongoing 2016 GITEX ICT exhibition, holding in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Director General of NITDA, Mr. Isah Pantami said government will link up Oguntade’s superficial anti-plagiarism software with another world class software detector to bring his creativity to fruition.

The DG stated that no research work can be accepted in the United Kingdom (UK), and other world class universities without acknowledging authors whose works were cited, adding that researches are more often subjected to Thornton software to ascertain their originality and similarity of indexes.

On plagiarism works in Nigeria, he said: “Today in Nigeria, you can just do your research and publish it without even testing, but abroad before you submit any research work, you have to upload it there, bring out the table of the similarity indexes.

“What is the originality of the research attached and what is the percentage of the plagiarism as the supervisory team will set down with you to see if there are any similarities.”

Pantami, who expressed happiness at the works of the 15 innovators from Nigeria, said government will give necessary support so they produce world class ICT software and products. He commended Oguntade for his works in connecting more than 40 institutions on e-learning platform.

He said: “NITDA will continue to support them through trying to utilise their strength and to support them so that they will continue to produce products and service of world class quality.
You can send that Nigerians are superb and intelligent people but when it comes to collaboration to produce world class product it is difficult.

“If only we can collaborate in all fields, I can assure you that we will as long as we can produce something of world class quality.”
He pledged to immediately assemble a team of young Nigeria scientists and innovators to carry out collaborative in the field of ICT.
“We should be able to produce a team of researchers that will collaborate and work with each other to produce world class product,

“We shall identify the problems of startups and move quickly to find solutions to them so as to prevent brain drain, conserve foreign exchange and produce a local Nigerian product or software that will compete with the best in the world.”

Earlier at the brief opening ceremony, the Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who was represented by his commended the organisers of the annual event which he said is a global innovators drive and movement towards digital revolution.

GITEX Commercial Director, World Trade Centre, Mr. Bilal Al- Rais, said over 100,000 visitors from over 150 countries will be participating at the event.

Related Articles