The Vice Chancellor of the Lagos State University of Science and Technology (LASUSTECH), Prof. Olumuyiwa Odusanya, has called for solid collaboration among academia, government, manufacturers, and other stakeholders for industrial turnaround in Nigeria.

Odusanya, who was a keynote speaker at the 11th Prof. Adetokunbo Babatunde Sofoluwe Memorial Anniversary Lecture held at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), said academic institutions must wake up to be at the forefront of the next level of industrial revolution.

Speaking on the theme, ‘Industry 5.0: Expected Impact on Higher Education’, the LASUSTECH VC said universities must reposition themselves in the way that industries will continually seek solutions to their production innovation and general industrial challenges from them.

He said it was high time universities rose to the challenges of new Industry 5.0 and braced up for research that could help the industrial revolution in the country.

According to him, there is a need for universities to change their curriculum towards a new level of the industrial revolution, emphasising that industries should depend on universities for their development as it is done in developed countries.

He said it is imperative for the universities to have patents to sell industrial research results to the manufacturers as he mentioned five world most innovative universities all in the United States upon which manufacturers depends for industrial research.

Giving the history of various industrial revolutions, Odusanya explained that the first industrial revolution tagged Industry 1.0 was mechanization with the introduction of industrial production equipment driven by water and steam power.

He said the second revolution – Industry 2.0 entailed electrification which brought about mass production using electrical energy and assembly line, Industry 3.0 was tagged automation which was characterised by automated production due to the rise of electronics, telecommunications, and computers, while Industry 4.0 was tagged Digitization enhanced production further with the use of cyber physical systems on connected devices to automate the process further.

He stated further that the new stage of the industrial revolution known as Industry 5.0, which is named Personalisation, entails the interdependence of man and machine using cognitive computing and human intelligence, mass customisation, and personalisation for humans.

According to him, Industry 5.0 aims at supporting but not superceding humans, and that it is about finding the optimal balance of efficiency and productivity, stating that the progress of Industry 5.0 is unavailable.

“Industry 5.0 is at this level, where we are talking about university, government, academia, industry, the community, the people and the planet. Perhaps we should be looking at it from a different perspective rather than saying, what is the impact of investment criteria?

“Can we look at the possibility of the relationship between industry and academia as the industry system, other than waiting for the industry to influence us?

“Can we develop a relationship and to now see how investors can key into industrial revolution and progress?

“I like to remind us that universities themselves were an industry, and that is what vice chancellors, deans, professors understand. Where do you find such a large pool of people? My university has about 1,200 staff.

“We have almost 6,000 students. Consider the expertise, consider the fact of the value of the knowledge, of the research, of the innovation department of universities in Nigeria, then you will agree that really, industry does not belong to where people work alone, it starts from education and we are to be value adding industry.”

He highlighted that the key technologies of Industry 5.0 include bio-inspired technologies and smart materials, human-machine interaction, digital twins, 5G connectivity and digital sharing, advanced robotic, 4D and 5D printing as well as artificial intelligence (AI).

“Artificial intelligence is an advanced technology that has the potential to fundamentally transform the manufacturing industry and create unparalleled working opportunities within the “Missing middle” and forge the path towards smart, efficient and sustainable, manufacturing Cryptocurrency Block chain Machine learning,” he said.

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