His/Her Excellencies, Distinguished guest speakers and participants,

Distinguished IEEE members, ladies and gentlemen.

On behalf of the entire membership of IEEE worldwide, numbering over 450,000, making us the largest professional body worldwide, I welcome you to IEEE Nigeria section’s 4^th international conference on disruptive technologies for sustainable development, where we bring together researchers and industry players to come and interact with innovative ideas to bring development to the world.

IEEE sponsors nearly 1,900 annual conferences and events worldwide, curating cutting edge contents for all of the technical fields of interest within IEEE. NIGERCON is one of them. I recall how it all started. It was in 2009 while having EXCO meeting of the section at Chief Masari’s office, Trans Amadi, Ph that I floated the idea of organizing international conference by the section. Prof Chukwudebe, the vice chair then, retorted, ‘do you mean workshop or seminar?, Conference is a different ball game all together’ I insisted: “conference”. All of us in the meeting agreed immediately to get a name and start planning for the conference. It was a big relieve when Prof Chukwudebe suggested NIGERCON and we adopted the name.

Naturally, Prof Chukwudebe was given the task to put the team together as General Conference Chair and I as the section Chair was the conference co-chair. We thereafter held the first edition at Abuja on 17^th to 19^th June, 2010 at Rockview hotels. The second edition was held at Links Hotel Owerri, with active support from Federal University of Science and Technology, Oweri from 14^th to 16^th November, 2013. We had the third edition at FUT Owerri from 7^th to 10^th of November, 2017, chaired by Prof. Ifeyinwa Achumba. I am happy to inform you that as approved by our able Chair, Engr. Funso Adebayo and adopted by the EXCO, the conference will now take place every 2 years unfailingly. Permit me to recognize the contribution of late David Okoreafor to organization of our last NIGERCON in 2017 and other activities of the section. As a student in FUTO, while struggling with cancer he still learnt a lot of skills on the side such as autonomous systems, robotics, electronic design and machine programming all of which came to his aid after school never to be unemployed. He even had a stint with Nigeria air force. He was so resourceful as not only our webmaster but provided us a lot of support even in planning for Power Africa 2019 conference. May his soul rest in peace! Amen!

NIGERCON is the flagship conference of IEEE Nigeria section and over the years it has developed an outstanding international reputation of high quality content. In this edition, we have even moved further to ensure only world-class papers suitable for IEEE explore gets into our proceedings. In this light, we give commendation to the very top class and eagle eyed members of our TPC for compliance with my directive that only the best must be accepted for publication. I want to especially recognize Dr Kennedy Okafor for leading this team day and night to achieve the onerous goal. Dr Okafor is the future of Nigeria and I can assure all of you that in a few years we shall all be proud of our association with him as he would have become a world renowned academic for his consistency, hard work and dedication to excellence.

In this edition, we are having some STEM activities for our future scientists/Engineers being run by one of our future stars, Engr (Mrs) Mistura Muibideen and series of workshops, with the most fascinating one for me being the workshop on grant writing to be led by another burden super star in academics, Prof Nazir assisted by Dr Okafor. I am particularly interested in this because I believe that in Nigeria and Africa, the future for university education funding and research is in getting grants from all the bodies that are ready to provide by preparing our researchers to be able to write wining proposals. We have another workshop on 3D printing which will help our researchers and DIY enthusiast.

So many of my team members contributed in no small measure to ensuring that we have a superlative conference, so it is impossible in this short address to mention the names of everyone; but permit me to mention our wonderful administrator and LOC Chair, Engr Abdullateef  Aliyu for always providing answers to our numerous demands to get things done. As I said during POWER AFRICA 2019 he is the man in charge. I am proud to have people like him to work with. Let me also thank our BoT Chair and African Council Chair Elect, Engr. Isaac Adekanye for always following up with me on all matters concerning the conference as my personal guardian angel.

I once again welcome you to use the opportunity of your attendance of the conference to network widely and make new life-long friendship for the betterment of humanity.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, I thank you all for honoring our invitation.

Please relax and enjoy!

Engr. Tunde Y. Salihu (General Conference Chair, 2022 IEEE NIGERCON)