Topaz Olujie seeks to ‘deploy innovation’ for PWD association

Topaz Olujie, president of the Nigerian National Association of the Deaf (NNAD), says his administration will deploy innovation to improve welfare of members in the next four years. 

He made the promise while answering questions during an interactive session with members of the association on Sunday.

Asked about his position on innovation, its adoption and how he will encourage innovation among members, Olujie said his administration has already branded itself as the “only innovation-friendly administration in the history of NNAD”.

He said the association believes in innovation because “it’s important for NNAD’s progress”.

“Innovation doesn’t happen overnight. It occurs in stages. When I refer to stages, I mean starting from a conceptual idea, moving to manual testing and then to automation,” he said.

“Currently, we have completed the conceptual idea to manual stage as seen in our Sign Language project conducted in Uyo, Abuja and Kano.

“We have developed a sign language dictionary and videos.

“Now, we are using this as the initial stage to drive innovation, such as developing a Nigerian Sign Language (NSL) App and partnering with telecoms to enable deaf individuals to make calls easily and effectively through video relay service.

“Video Relay Service (VRS) is one of our projects. We are waiting to launch this at the right time.

“A lot of work is ongoing behind the scene regarding VRS.”