The Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) has unveiled the logo for the Women Empowering Women in Intellectual Property (We Win IP) campaign to celebrate the World Intellectual Property Day.
The Director-General of NCC, Dr John Asein performed the unveiling on Wednesday in Abuja.
He said that the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) declared April 26 every year as the World Intellectual Property Day.
Asein explained that the aimed was to raise awareness about intellectual property (IP) and promote its use as a tool for growing innovation and creativity.
The theme for this year’s celebration is, “Women and IP: Accelerating Innovation and Creativity”.
According to the NCC boss, the theme draws attention to the role women play in innovation and creativity, their achievements, challenges and how society can harness their talents to accelerate growth.
“Nigeria has its own array of women innovators, creators, and entrepreneurs in diverse fields that are making remarkable impact in the society. We celebrate them.
“In order to institutionalise and find an enduring national response to upscale the IP knowledge of women, the NCC is today launching the Women Empo
wering Women in Intellectual Property (We Win IP) campaign.
“The initiative is to carefully nurture more women IP experts who will in turn empower other women through training, capacity building, mentoring and other informal knowledge transfer protocols.
“According to the slogan, We Win IP’ campaign: ‘Together, we win!’. We will encourage women to stand with other women so that working together; we can win on all fronts through the better use of the IP system.
“I am pleased to note that under the We Win IP project, the Commission has already trained 26 women business owners/CEOs, on the rudiments of copyright and the opportunities available to them in the digital environment.
“Also, 50 women have been encouraged to undertake the WIPO Distance Learning (DL) General Course on Intellectual Property, while about 120 young lawyers are being mentored in the use of IP,” Asein said.
The NCC boss explained that in the coming weeks, the Commission would recognise some successful women as IP champions, experts and mentors to empower young and upcoming female entrepreneurs and SMEs in the use of the IP system.
He added that the Commission would train more clusters of women SMEs, creators and innovators across the country to build capacity, skills and knowledge.
“Already, with the support of WIPO, a pilot project for SMEs has commenced in the fashion, raffia and leather craft industries to enhance their trade and contribution to national development”.
He said that the recent winning of the Grammy Award by Nigeria’s Temilade Openiyi also known as Tems has again shown that this generation of Nigerian women will break more ceilings if given the enabling environment to pursue their passions.
He emphasised that the Commission would continue to strengthen the copyright system and make it more efficient and fit for purpose to support the realisation of their creative goals.
According to him, long before the World IP Day was launched in 2000, Nigeria, in 1995, had designated September 14 (the day Nigeria joined the Berne Convention) as the country’s National Creativity Day.
“The Commission will work with other relevant stakeholders, Ministries, Departments and Agencies to resuscitate the celebration of that Day and give recognition to the best of our creative talents.
“We will do this to raise awareness about the importance of copyright and creativity,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Director of Press at the Commission, Mrs Ijeoma Ebunike, said the essence of the initiative was to encourage women to empower other women.
“We just unveiled the We Win IP initiative Logo.
“By this, the Commission gets group of women and educate them on IP and they in turn empower other women on how to be strong in what they do to help themselves and the society,” she said.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that high points of the was the unveiling of the We Win IP Initiative Logo and spoken words performances by Maryam Bukar and Loveth Liberty,
Other high points were the panel discussion on accelerating female innovative, creative enterprise in Nigeria and Regulatory and policy support for female creative and Innovative entrepreneurs. (NAN)
