World Bank selects FUTO as centre for future energies and electro-chemical system – The World Bank has selected the Federal University of Technology, Owerri as Africa centre of excellence in Future Energies and Electro-Chemical System, otherwise called ACE-FUELS.
It was gathered that ACE-FUELS would facilitate the university to run an international Masters Degree programmes in Electro-Chemical Technology, Future Energies, Nanotechnology and Corrosion Technology.
Speaking at a media parley on Wednesday, organized by the university to mark the Vice Chancellor’s three years in office, the VC, Professor Francis Eze stated that the university management had concluded plans to gather wastes for the production of energy.
He further advised Nigerian institutions to embrace the new technology, adding that it was the current global practice.
The VC said, “As we have continued to improve on the aesthetics of the campus environment through the maintenance of green lawns, proper waste disposal and management are also billed to be converted into energy. This is the current trend in most of the civilized world and we are emulating it. It would be of immeasurable help in power generation”.
He stated FUTO was established as a specialized university to impart practical knowledge and requisite skills needed to fast-track the technological development in the country.
Eze however, revealed that it was to deepen and expand research activities and innovation that his administration created the office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Research, Development and Innovation
The VC did not omit to state that his three years in office had been a mixture of accomplishment and challenges.
He listed encroachment on FUTO land, hostile and uncooperative attitude of host communities, lack of staff quarters, inadequate power supply, ill-equipped library and laboratory facilities, poor road networks and inadequate hostel accommodation among others as some of the challenges faced by the university.