Indigenous energy and infrastructure conglomerate, Sahara Group, has announced the establishment of the Sahara School of Innovation and Extrapreneurship at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, to serve as a platform for promoting inventions and solutions that will facilitate sustainable development and global competitiveness in Africa.
The Director, Governance and Sustainability at Sahara Group, Ejiro Gray, said her firm would collaborate with UNILAG to make the school a world class facility that will proffer solutions to future challenges today, with emphasis on areas like the future of energy, entrepreneurship, data science, digital arts and culture, artificial intelligence and robotics, and fintech, among others.
At the sod-turning ceremony of the proposed school in the school campus, Gray explained that the project reinforces Sahara Group’s commitment to giving back always and also serves as one of the firm’s contributions towards building a formidable legacy for sustainable development.
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“For over 26 years, innovation and extraprenuership have driven Sahara’s growth across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. We are confident that working with the University of Lagos, a foremost institution of global repute, the school would deliver sustainable value for the benefit of Africa and the world at large,” said Gray, whose directorate would drive the project.
Commending Sahara Group for the initiative, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Professor Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, stated it is particularly gladdening that the drivers of the project are alumni of the University from different faculties, who have by their achievements, individually and jointly, demonstrated to the world the quality of UNILAG products.
He noted that the Sahara Group School of Innovation and Extrapreneurship project hallmarks the repositioning of UNILAG as a “University of The Future”, a vision that has shaped its pursuits over the last five years and informs its 60th-anniversary theme: UNILAG@60: Eyes on the Future.