The Chairman, Association of Professional Women Engineers (APWEN) Lagos Chapter, Monsurah Alagbe, has advised practising engineers to build on mentoring and self-development capabilities of members.

Alagbe, who spoke at the Women In Construction, Engineering and Commerce Conference (WCEC 2022) held in Lagos, urged stakeholders, especially women in the industry to unlearn archaic ideas and embrace new technologies.

Alagbe said: “We need to re-strategise, learn and relearn by embracing new technologies that abounds, as well as Internet of Things (IoT) on how to convert all theories into economic values by leveraging on all the information shared and network/mentoring platforms offered for better result of our ‘engine-commerce’ synergy.”

She observed that Nigeria is one of the African countries with the highest Gross Domestic Product(GDP). This, she said, was as a result of 16 per cent output from construction industry, where engineering profession falls within.

Other sectors that contributed to this increase, she said, are communication, information and services – 10 per cent, agriculture, natural gas and crude petroleum with 11 per cent.

According to her, the development highlighted the need to harness all available resources, such as human, materials, equipment and skills to achieve more and make the environment viable for growth and development in all sectors of economy.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), had reported that there was a positive turnaround at the third quarter of the year 2021 as the country was able to close the year with a GDP of $514 billion, to earn first position of the best 10 African countries to invest in 2022.

The APWEN chairman said: “The good thing is that we have the market with close to 1.5 billion population within which we can showcase our talents, skills and expertise for the much-needed commerce growth. The most interesting part is that there is hope if there is better synergy in the construction, engineering and business spaces.

“There’s no doubt that we have many challenges, as well as great opportunities and with everybody’s corporation and collaboration, we will meet up with the economic vibrancy and make subsequent years the best in our history,” she said.