By Elijah Ugani
The University of Calabar Vice Chancellor, Prof Offiong E. Offiong has called on Dr Oli Olowhu and CypherCrescent LTD to expand the training of students and lecturers on the SEPAL Solver and WRM training to other faculties in the University.
Prof Offiong made the call on Thursday 29th of January, 2026 when the former Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Prof Odey Osha, led Dr Oli Olowhu and CypherCrescent team on a courtesy call to the Vice Chancellor.
The University helmsman commended Dr Oli Olowhu for facilitating the training and used the opportunity to call on other distinguished alumni of the university who are in privileged positions to provide a pathway for collaborations that will benefit the university. The VC mentioned that Dr. Oli was one of his former students in Chemistry Department, Unical and he is very glad to know that a student that he personally taught is making some great contributions to the oil and gas industry and also returning to give back to the institution that moulded him.
The VC appluaded the use of SEPAL Solver, a software that is using a mathematical approach in programming to provide solutions to engineering challenges which will in turn build the foundation and basis that will prepare students and graduates for the labour market.
Prof Offiong expressed willingness to expand the collaboration with other companies within the industry as technology seemed to have provided solutions needed to navigate most of the challenges.
Responding, the Lead Trainer of CypherCrescent LTD, Engr Lateef Adewale Karim, an expert in computational and mathematical analysis who happens to be one of the third best globally in this field noted that CypherCrescent have such a collaboration with the University of Port Harcourt and hope to extend this to the University of Calabar.
Lateef noted that the Two softwares taught to over 40 participants, SEPAL Solver and Well Reservoir Management will support the participants in programme development. The Five-day hands-on training which was divided into Monday to Wednesday (SEPAL Solver) and Thursday to Friday (SEPAL Well Reservoir Management -WRM), designed to build practical competence in the use of SEPAL Solver for spatial analysis & environmental data processing, also introduced the participants to SEPAL Well Reservoir Management (WRM) concepts and applications. The Well Reservoir Management (WRM) training is a comprehensive, cloud based indigenous technology designed by Cyphercrescent Ltd for oil and gas asset management. At the end of the training, the participants will be able to integrate production, reservoir, geological, petrophysical and well intervention data to optimise oil and gas production, monitor well performance and proffer some solutions to reduce operating expenses in the oil and gas industry.
Engr Lateef also informed the VC that the SEPAL Solver software can also be used in other sectors such as Space Technology and health care management. He stated that in 2020, he was in the presidential panel and was among those who worked with Bill Gates to developed the software that was used in disease control during the COVID 19 period. He mentioned that one of his former colleagues in CypherCrescent is now the Head of Disease Control in the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) headquarters in Abuja.
On his part, the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Research and Linkages, Prof Anthony Eneji, commended the team for the efforts made and pledged his readiness to strengthen the collaboration as stated by the Vice Chancellor.
The facilitator of the collaboration, Dr Oli Olowhu informed the VC that he attracted the programme at no cost to Unical. He stated that “the industry-academia collaboration has a symbiotic relationship to breach the gap between the industry and academia. This relationship will open up opportunities for the lecturers and the students to develop capacity building to support the oil and gas industry”. He also informed the Vice Chancellor that some of the bright students who participated in the training would be offered internship opportunities with CypherCresent. Dr further announced that two of the engineering graduates from Unical have been offered internship position with an E&P company through his recommendation.
Oli promised to discuss with CypherCrescent management to sustain the program as requested by the Vice Chancellor. Dr Oli further disclosed that “the cost of training for each of the Two softwares is about 5,000USD, which means that each of the participants will have paid 10,000USD as training fees multiply by over 40 participants (about 400,000USD), and the university is having this training at no cost”.
He commended the MD of CypherCrescent, Engr Thankgod Egbe, for his goodwill and support to ensure the timely approval of the free training.
The former Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Prof Odey Osha, thanked the Vice Chancellor for providing the opportunity for the training to take place and assured CypherCrescent LTD that with the Vice Chancellor’s desire to place the university in global perspective, the academic and industry collaboration has come to stay in the university of Calabar.
Speaking with Theluminenews, the Head, Department of Petroleum Engineering, Engr Precious Effiom, expressed delight and satisfaction when she noted that “We hope to get access to other software licenses, as they have given us licences to the Two softwares taught during this training free.
Speaking further, Engr Effiom mentioned three key actions to be taken by the department as a follow up to the training “As a department, we intend to integrate the softwares application into the petroleum engineering curriculum. Organise a step down training for staff and students who were not available for the programme as well as initiate an MoU with CypherCrescent LTD for this initiative”.
