The Director-General, National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), Mr. Oluwemimo Joseph Osanipin, on Tuesday paid a courtesy visit to the Minister of Women Affairs, Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim as part of measure to boost the auto sector.
The meeting focused on innovation in agriculture, gender inclusion, and rural development, highlighting a shared vision for leveraging technology, mobile solutions, and women-focused initiatives to drive economic empowerment and improve service delivery.
During the meeting, Mr. Oluwemimo emphasized the potential of scaling up local development of harvesting and weeding equipment, especially lightweight and mobile solutions for rural farmers, acknowledging the urgent need for modern tools tailored to Nigerian farmers.
Reacting, the Minister emphasized the importance of gender equality in entrepreneurship, highlighting the need for deliberate inclusion of women in national programs and reaffirmed the Ministry’s commitment to gender inclusive policies, mobile innovations, media awareness, networking opportunities and skill development for Nigerian women.
A key proposal was the development of a dedicated mobile app for women’s capacity building offering:
Access to training, Market linkages, Essential services like international passport applications.
Mr. Oluwemimo expressed interest in integrating these ideas into NADDC’s Automotive Innovation Ecosystem, which deploys mobile infrastructure solutions like libraries and mechanic services to underserved rural communities.
He also expressed the Council’s readiness to broaden the scope of the PowerHer 774 scheme to incorporate and empower female technicians.
The collaborative engagement aligns with the PowerHer 774 initiative which aims to bridge the energy gap that continues to hinder progress for millions of women and families, particularly in rural communities by ensuring women’s inclusion in national training and empowerment schemes.
The engagement is also targeted at developing an app for women, integrating government and private sector support services as well as promote the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) ecosystem, with an emphasis on changing public perceptions and fostering grassroots adoption.
