NIS, NIX create platform for innovators, connect with stakeholders

By Omolola Dede Adeyanju

The Nigerian Innovation Summit (NIS) 2022 and the Nigerian Innovation Experience Talks (NIX) have created a platform in its Day 1 NIX programme for innovators to learn from CEOs, other thriving innovators and connect with relevant stakeholders who would mentor and fund their products and ideas.

Director of events and Partner, Nigeria Innovation Summit, Grace Akinosun explained that Nigerian innovation experience talks (NIX) is a platform that helps to identify genuine, creative ideas and innovations within Nigeria, showcasing and connecting the innovators to relevant stakeholders.

According to her, “the awards are given to creative innovators who showcase ideas that address local problems, not problems of wants or needs only, but grassroots problems that concern the people on the street. Also, the products of our awardees must be commercially viable and indigenous”.

She revealed the vision of expansion for NIX as “working beyond the road map. The intention of creating a very robust framework to capture more innovative people across Nigeria and collaborate with stakeholders in the ecosystem such as Union bank, Microsoft, PWC and others. We ensure talents meet with these firms, we negotiate with stakeholders and stakeholders looking for innovative solutions get to meet innovators. We are an intermediary between the stakeholders and innovators. We have a large network of investors, government access for those looking for access to private-public partnership, and even government in the federal level”.

“We are placing Nigeria in the global stage of innovation, because we have received international recognition from the international body for innovation for instance, and they are always very excited to work with us”.

“My advice to the youths out there is for them to image the way they see problems and fish out solutions to combat the challenges. Platforms like this makes entrepreneurs and innovators see things in a broader level, they can easily network, get inspiration and collaborate with stakeholders.

Head of Channels and Digital Innovation, Union Bank, Akoh Ochai rated the Nigerian innovations excellently. He cited examples of the funding coming into the African nations, “after South Africa, Nigeria ranks the highest, the people bringing in the funds actually saw a level of value they can buy into. So, I can say we are doing great and the impact is increasing in different areas. I read somewhere that there are about 14 or 15 UNICONS, and 7 of them are already in Nigeria. So, that tells you the level of opportunity and the quality of innovations in Nigeria.

Union bank is partnering with Nigeria Innovation Summit (NIS) and investing in Space Nxt. We also have our innovation programme called union X. It is like an acetone or an acceleration programme targeted at external start-ups. They bring in their ideas we help with mentors, funding and we develop the ideas into impactful products.

Speaking to other innovators, the CEO, “SH’EMERGE”, Mrs Francis Aboribo enumerated the difficulties encountered by married women in the industry, mostly mothers. Hence, her passion and determination to empower women with skills, mostly coding skills and helping them to work from home or conveniently. “I teach mothers coding, graphic design for free. I have about 72 women on scholarship in my institution”, she noted.

She further advised the government to create more platforms for women to be empowered. She also lauded the efforts of the government in some states and encouraged more developments, saying, “the nation is getting closer to the light”.

The CEO, Art by Collins, Mr Abinoho Collins reacted to Nigeria’s response to art. He explained that Nigerians are not new to art, “it’s been our foundation, it’s still in the growing market and is gradually getting better. Art works are used to tell stories, experiences or even represent the society values, communicate and address social issues. Our intention is to have greater access in the global space and tell our Nigerian stories to the global world. We should be able to tell our stories ourselves and not have it written for us. We should be able to find Nigerian art works in international museums.

“What we do have enough capacity to attract a lot of tourists into Nigeria, but investors may relent due to security issues. So, the government has to implement better policies that can restore the pride and dignity of our nation. Unstable Power supply, unfriendly business environment and other challenging factors should be resolved, because they are literally affecting start-up businesses.

“For me, he went further, I believe its either they are none or there are no applicable policies that protect the environmental sculptors in Nigeria. The government can wake up any day and pull down anyone’s sculpture without consultation or proper relocation of the sculptures. We have had a couple of them destroyed in Lagos and they were all taken out of public places, and no one knows where they were taken to. It’s actually against public practices globally. These are policies that practically insult the works of an artist. If a public piece should be removed, it should be relocated and not destroyed”.

“Yes , there is an agency that should protect the rights of artists like the Nigerian Commission for ARTS and Tourism. But I cannot rate them, because I have been a part of international artists promoting arts and cultures, but I have realized we don’t have that in Nigeria. We do not have a good museum of international standard. If we bring these things into consideration, we will succeed in developing our image and market. The country will be admired by foreigners and we will get more investors.

The summit hosted a lot of CEOs and innovators, such as the CEO, Spacefinish, Remi Dada; CEO and Cofounder, Emergency Response Africa, Folake Owoduni; CEO, Edugist, Elvis Boniface among others.