Human resources development by means of training, education at universities and schools, and skill development within industry projects will be essential to foster product innovation within the African industry. It is expected that investments in Industrial Design Engineering (IDE) through educating engineering students and companies can contribute to the innovation capacity of African industry...

It is becoming increasingly difficult for Nigerian universities to go it alone in terms of serving as a citadel of learning, coping with the huge wage bill and competing with their peers in other parts of the world, due to competitive, economic and other pressures. As a consequence, Nigerian universities are left with no option than to carry their industrial partners along in terms of research ...

1 Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600 036, India. Tel: 91-44-2578297, FAX: 91-44-2572545/ 2570509, email: [email protected] Abstract − The most important factors of national competitiveness veer around the skilled human resources. The ascendancy of information technology and the intellectual capital in the current millenium w...