Olumide Odeyemi: Revolutionizing African business with scientific research

Olumide Odeyemi, PhD, is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Higis Consulting. He is a research scientist, communicator and consultant, with over 10 years experience in research consultancy. In this interview with NIYI OYEDEJI, he speaks on his plans to revolutionise Africa through scientific research.

 

As a research scientist and an entrepreneur, what are your areas of specialisation?

I am a research scientist and research communicator with a doctorate degree from Australia. I train next generation scientists with various research skills that they could not acquire in school. Hence, I am ‘researchpreneur’. I am a seafood research microbiologist with areas of expertise in seafood spoilage, microbial food safety and quality, aquaculture microbiology, metagenomics, metabolomics and microbial ecology. I am a fellow of the Institute of Science and Technology, United Kingdom, a fellow of the African Scientific Institute (ASI), United States and an active member of Association of African Agricultural Professionals in the Diaspora (AAAPD). I am a recipient of various competitive international scholarships and awards among which are: University of Tasmania Graduate Research Travel Grant (2017), Australian Society for Microbiology conference bursary (2017), BOTES Travel Grant (2017), semi-finalist 3 minutes thesis competition (2017), student ambassador, University of Tasmania (2016), nominated for Study Tasmania Award for contribution to international education in Tasmania (2016), IMAS Research and Travel grant (2017), Vice Chancellor Leadership Award (2016), FSOA young ambassador (2016 till date), semi-finalist data science fellowship united States of America (2016), student ambassador, University of Tasmania (2015 – 2017), Graduate Student Bursaries Awardee, University of Tasmania (2015), Travel Bursary Graduate Research Conference, University of Tasmania (2015), Vice Chancellor Leadership Awardee (2015), Tasmania Graduate Research Scholarship (2014) and University of Tasmania Tuition Fee Scholarship (2014).

 

How did you come about Higis Consulting?

My answer will be two-sided. I am a research scientist, consultant and research communicator.  Three months to my PhD graduation, I was offered a job by the university where I completed my doctorate degree. However, before the completion of my PhD, I started Higis Consulting which is a consultancy firm that aims to empower the next generation of researchers and scientists in developing countries with transferable skills that are of local relevance and global importance leading to skilled, knowledgeable and better manpower that can compete globally. The firm provides three major services namely: training, advisory/consultancy and research.

 

How do you now execute your programmes?

Firstly, we organise various monthly online research skills training. We train participants on what and types of plagiarism, consequences of plagiarism, how to detect plagiarism, how to avoid plagiarism. We started with plagiarism because it is global problem and mostly prevalent in low resource countries like Nigeria. More so, based on in house survey, we observed that many students do not know what plagiarism all many was about and surprisingly were engaging in the act of plagiarising other people’s work and even submitting such for assignment. We also train people on academic and research writing (research proposal/plan, thesis/project writing, how to write articles for scientific publication, how to design poster and give oral presentations. We have also held training on plagiarism referencing, referencing styles, referencing software, paraphrasing and quoting. Recently, we held training on how to manage your research either as researcher, undergraduate and postgraduate students. We also train those seeking postgraduate admission within or outside Nigeria on how to find supervisor, how to select a research topic, how to manage supervisor by understanding the supervisor, and establishing a good working relationship. We have also trained our clients on effective research communication including research lifecycle, and importance of research communication. Other trainings include research impact, funding and scholarships.

Secondly, we provide advisory service to scholars, NGOs and industry. For example, embarking on a research and or postgraduate training, especially at the doctoral level is more than conducting research and acquiring degree. There are financial, emotional, physical and professional implications which if not properly handled could result into stress and possibly mental health issues thereby impacting optimal performance or drop out.  Various studies have called for close attention on the mental health of doctoral students. For example, a recent study in Belgium shows that one out of two doctoral students experience depression (hopelessness, helplessness, or worthlessness) while one out of three may experience psychiatric disorder. Sleeping disorder, unhappiness, strain, eating disorder, and lack of productivity are other negative effects that doctoral students could experience. Globally, PhD candidates are six times capable of developing depression and anxiety. Some if not all these stressors could be avoided or minimized through proper and early professional guidance. Development active strategies coupled with early interventions could help prevent study related depression and anxiety (complaints, meditation, nervousness, and worry).

Thirdly, the NGO arm of our organisation initiates and collaborate with researchers in Nigeria and in other countries to conduct problem solving research. For example, we initiated an intercontinental study on food safety awareness among consumers in seven different countries. The outcome of the study was published in a high impact factor journal. There are other ongoing projects too that we have initiated.

 

How many researchers and scientists have you empowered so far?

In 2019 alone, we have been able to train over one hundred and twenty researchers, lecturers and students from various institutions and research institutes in Nigeria have been trained through our monthly or quarterly training sections.

 

What motivated you to be empowering young scientists?

It all started over ten years ago. All my postgraduate education was outside Nigeria and I could see our deficiencies in research skills. Having acquired these skills, I decided to help those who do not have the skills and exposure that I have.

 

When did you start this project?

This project started over ten years ago mostly as pro bono. However, over time, the vision became clearer and I decided to register it as a company in 2017.

 

Have you won any grants since you started?

As research scientist, I have won many scholarships, awards and grants. However, I have not used the company to apply for any grant. This is because I am focusing more on getting the company to stand as we are the only company offering such services at this moment to the best of my knowledge.

 

What are your expansion plans?

One of the expansion plans is to upgrade the training from issuing certificate of participation to diploma certificate and in so doing, the training will not be for just two days that we usually have now but for months covering several training modules. Secondly, face to face training will commence by 2020 and by then, participants can come to our main office for short term training. Thirdly customised trainings for organisations will also commence. For example, we can organise in house training for researchers in the universities and research institutes.  One area of focus is Science PR communications. In this case, we are going to be helping researchers communicate their research findings to appropriate audience through various means. This will help prevent the ongoing misnomer in public communication of research findings that can lead to the public not trusting science and scientists anymore.

 

What are the problems you have faced since you started?

At the moment, our services are rendered mostly remotely. There are reasons for this. Firstly, many people do not like the idea of traveling around for two days training so we opted for online training that people can easily join at the comfort of their homes or any suitable environment. Secondly, the online training can easily be recorded verbatim and made immediately made available for participants. However, there are challenges. The internet connectivity in Nigeria is very poor. Some participants are not familiar with the use of the kind of platform that we are using for the training. Another challenge is the inability of some participants to complete the training, yet they want certificate of participation.

 

How do you think these problems could be solved?

One of the ways of solving these problems is to have face to face training sections but this will result into increased training fees. There is need to secure grant(s) to enable employing more workers and trainers. We will also be accepting interns and volunteers in coming years. We also want to collaborate with various institutions of higher learning and research institutes in training students (both undergraduates and postgraduates, researchers and lecturers)

 

What advice do you have for young African scientists and researchers?

Impactful research is one of the panaceas to the various socio-economic problems we are experiencing in Africa. However, impactful research can only be carried out with appropriate research skills, funding and techniques. These take time to develop. Therefore, budding African scientists and researchers should acquire the necessary skills through personal development and collaboration.  They should also shun cutting corners and avoid hyping research findings. These days, many researchers are quick to jump to the media to announce their “scientific breakthroughs” instead of firstly allowing their knowledgeable colleagues to scrutinise their work. They should totally avoid any form of research dishonesty such as plagiarism, data falsification, data fabrication and unethical authorship like ghost authorship, gift authorship to mention few because, research dishonesty have sent many accomplished scientists to early career grave.