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Nigerian DefenceTech company Terra Industries has partnered with Miva Open University to establish integrated robotics and drone laboratories across the university’s learning centres, starting with a pilot facility in Abuja. The initiative is designed to give students practical engineering experience and deepen technology-focused education in the country.
Under the partnership, students will get hands-on training in designing, assembling, testing and flying drones as part of their academic coursework. The labs are meant to close the gap between classroom theory and real-world engineering by weaving practical drone and robotics instruction directly into the curriculum.
Beyond student training, Terra Industries will run hands-on workshops and train Miva Open University faculty members, while also creating internship and employment pathways for students. The company said top-performing students will be considered for internship placements and job opportunities, a move intended to build a pipeline of industry-ready talent for the continent’s engineering sector.
“Africa’s next generation of engineers should learn by building. This is how we develop the talent that will build the continent’s industrial base,” the company said on LinkedIn.
The collaboration is a sign of growing awareness between academics and the industrial ecosystem to build a talent pipeline for the country’s growing tech and defence startup ecosystem. By equipping students with practical robotics and drone skills, the initiative aims to prepare a new generation of engineers capable of contributing to Africa’s growing industrial and technology sectors from day one.
Terra Industries is a multi-domain systems and data intelligence company that builds autonomous security systems for critical sectors including energy, mineral resources, urban infrastructure, maritime assets, border security and counterterrorism operations, according to its website. Founded in 2024, the company builds integrated land, air and maritime systems powered by ArtemisOS, its unified software platform for large-scale security operations. Its product line includes the Archer VTOL surveillance drone, the Iroko UAV, the Duma autonomous ground vehicle, and the Kallon AI-powered sentry tower.
The university partnership comes as Terra Industries scales up its manufacturing footprint on the continent. In April, the company announced it would build Pax-2, a 34,000-square-foot drone manufacturing facility in Accra, Ghana, that it said will become the largest drone factory in Africa once fully operational. The Ghana facility, expected to be fully operational by the end of June 2026, follows the 15,000-square-foot Pax-1 flagship plant in Abuja, Nigeria, and is projected to reach an annual production capacity of 50,000 units across Terra’s aerial systems portfolio by 2028.
The Ghana expansion followed a $34 million raise to scale manufacturing, accelerate deployments and grow engineering teams across Nigeria and allied African countries. On the back of those announcements, the Miva Open University partnership positions the robotics and drone labs as a talent-development arm of Terra’s broader manufacturing ambitions, potentially feeding the kind of skilled, industry-ready engineers the company will need as it expands production across its facilities in the years ahead.
