The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) of the United Nations (UN) has said that Nigeria is still missing out of the over $73 trillion obal Intellectual Property wealth.
It said that Nigeria was losing financially because of its inability to capture intellectual property despite its abundance and viability.
The Director, WIPO-Nigeria, Mr. Oluwatobiloba Moody, gave the hint in Abuja at the Intellectual Property (IP) Programme in partnership with the National Youths Service Corps (NYSC).
The programme which is a pilot scheme is aimed at empowering young Nigerians towards advancing economic development through IP.
Mood stated: “Nigeria is losing because there is a huge creation of wealth in the space of intangible assets which the country is not fully tapping into.
“This is because we are not capturing this wealth through intellectual property such as the value of patents, copyrights among others.
“The value of intellectual property is constantly on the rise. Globally in 2021, the estimated value of intangible assets was worth $73 trillion. And I do not think we are capturing one per cent yet we are contributing majorly to the trillions and we are losing a lot of money.”
Also, the National Coordinator of the pilot programme, IP Skills, Acquisition, Learning, and Youth Entrepreneurship, Obichi Obiajunwa said that no fewer than 50 corps members in the FCT were selected.
According to him, this is to enable them to identify challenges and then create innovations using technological solutions.
Obiajunwa said that while the pilot phase was for corps members in Abuja, it would be scale up to other states by next year.
He added: “The corps members are the participants in this programme. About 50 of them would be trained between three and four months. We are going to get them exposed to the environment where they have been posted to enable them to create innovations to tackle challenges using technological solutions.
“At the end of the programme, it is hoped that they will create start-ups, businesses, and innovation-driven enterprises. We will be engaging stakeholders and bringing in investors to make this work.”
Obiajunwa stressed that the NYSC members would be exposed to investors following their creation of technologies and would guide and mentor them through this process.