The Executive Vice Chairman of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Prof. Umar Garuba Danbatta has said the commission is committed to utilizing the capacity in the academia through research activities and innovation to impact on businesses and society.

Prof Danbatta stated this in Abuja while inaugurating the Inter-Agency Committee for the Evaluation of 2018 Research proposals from the academia.

He said the Commission was committed to this objective because finding local solutions to the challenges of the industry is a policy so dear to the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

He explained that the inauguration of the committee was vital to the telecommunications industry and also very valuable to the academic community by way of adding value to research output.

‘‘Our objective has been to deliberately utilize the capacity resident in the academia and to redirect it towards getting involved in research activities that can impact on businesses and society leading to the development of new products and services for the entire industry.

‘‘We are also of the strong opinion that for an industry that has recorded globally appreciable growth over the years and a major contributor to the country’s GDP, the sector has capacity to contribute to the expansion of knowledge in the academia and consequently benefit from such contributions’’, he said.