Elevating Nigeria on the Global Stage: Building a Thriving Innovation Powerhouse
At the vibrant panel discussion during the Innovate2Market launch, experts examined Nigeria's vast entrepreneurial prospects and debated strategies to catalyze an unprecedented startup boom.
Amid the bustling energy of Nigeria's innovation landscape, a transformative initiative recently launched. The Innovation and Technology Management Office (ITMO) at the University of Lagos, with support from the UK government through Research and Innovation Systems for Africa (RISA), recently unveiled Project Innovate2Market (I2M). With a bold ambition to provide comprehensive support, guidance, and funding to over 500 Nigerian innovators and researchers, I2M aims to fast-track the journey of groundbreaking ideas from conception to market within just nine months. This aspirational goal is not just about individual success stories, it's about catalyzing a nationwide innovation revolution and fostering an environment where any level of innovation can be nurtured, commercialized, and celebrated as a triumph for the entire nation.
At the launch event, experts discussed challenges, opportunities and made recommendations aimed at transforming Nigeria’s vast innovation potential into an entrepreneurial powerhouse.
Below is an edited summary of the discussion, organized by panelist:
Iyinoluwa Aboyeji
CEO and General Partner of Fund for Africa's Future; Co-Founder of Andela and Flutterwave.
In view of the future, what sectors of the economy do you think innovation will drive, as a place for Nigerian innovators to focus their strength?
Iyinoluwa Aboyeji discussed the economic evolution of Nigeria and its potential areas for future development, noting Nigeria's shift from an agricultural commodity-based economy to one focused on oil and gas in the 1970s and 1980s. Despite attempts at industrialization, he observed that Nigeria lost ground to Asian economies during this time.
In more recent years, he noted that most of the valuable jobs and economic opportunities in Nigeria are being created online, particularly in technology and software. However, this is not enough to sustain an economy which needs to be rooted in physical infrastructure.
He identified critical areas for innovation:
Optimization of human potential: a shift in the concept of university education and an emphasis on identifying and developing talent on a large scale.
Rethinking infrastructure: focus on distributed infrastructure, particularly in connectivity and power, to support and enable the digital economy.
Rethinking markets: redefine markets based on demographics rather than geography, potentially allowing businesses to serve more people.
Overall, Iyinoluwa advocated for a comprehensive approach to innovation that includes education, infrastructure, and market reform to ensure Nigeria's continued economic growth and development.
You've worked on a number of successful startups, including Andela and Flutterwave. In your opinion, what are some of the key elements that lead to a startup's success, and how can Nigerian startups apply these principles to achieve sustainable growth?
Iyinoluwa shared key insights from his entrepreneurial background, focusing on the importance of understanding the main problem you're trying to solve, assembling the right team, and focusing on the right actions.
He emphasized deeply understanding the problem before conceptualizing a solution. With Andela and Flutterwave, he took time to study the landscape and understand the issues at a fundamental level before developing their solution. For instance, with Flutterwave, he found that merchants resisted adopting payments systems because they would get locked into one method, so they created a solution that integrated all payment methods.
Secondly, Iyinoluwa underlined the importance of having the right team. He cautioned against assembling a team based on friendship or ego, urging the audience to instead select people based on their expertise and capability. He’s done this himself, choosing co-founders based on their competence in the respective fields, not personal relationships.
Lastly, Iyinoluwa advises focusing on the right things, particularly in the early stages of a startup, cautioning against getting distracted by appearances, such as launching big events, press releases, or creating a fancy office. Focus on tasks that directly contribute to the bottom line, such as understanding the problem, making a sale, and talking to customers every day. In his own work, hard work and focus in the early days paid off in the long run, even though these efforts were not immediately noticeable to the public.
Adenike Adeyemi
Executive Director for FATE Foundation
On the entrepreneurship landscape, what are policy factors that you consider as stifling to innovation in Nigeria?
Adenike Adeyemi discussed the current state of entrepreneurship in Nigeria, based on an annual index report she’s been producing for several years.
Key findings include:
Demographics: The majority of businesses (67%) in Nigeria are run by young people aged 35 and below. Moreover, a significant proportion of these businesses are led by women, a percentage that is higher in Nigeria than continent-wide or globally.
Business Performance Indicators: The report evaluates five main areas - business performance, entrepreneurial skills, adoption and use of digital technology, business and regulatory environment, and perception of opportunities. Despite the challenges of building a business in Nigeria, there's a high perception of opportunities, leading to an increasing number of people running businesses.
Regulatory Environment: The regulatory environment is identified as the most significant challenge for entrepreneurs. Although there have been improvements in this area, Adenike suggested that further efforts are needed for different regulatory bodies to work together more effectively.
Startup Act: A significant development in the regulatory environment is the passing of the Startup Act, designed to support and incentivize those with innovative startup ideas.
Education and Advocacy: Adenike highlighted the importance of aligning educational curriculum with the needs of the market environment. Theoretical teaching of entrepreneurship and innovation is not enough, so she stressed the need for more practical applications.
Regulatory Challenges: She identified three main regulatory challenges for Nigerian businesses - the ability to quickly start and build a business, regulatory compliance across different sectors, and the lack of shared data among regulators. Regulatory hurdles can discourage businesses from registering and complying with regulations.
Overall, Adenike believes that while there is high entrepreneurial potential in Nigeria, the regulatory environment is a significant challenge that needs to be addressed to further enhance the growth of businesses.
In your opinion, what are some of the key challenges that Innovators in Nigeria face in scaling their products, and how can these be addressed?
Adenike discussed the factors that contribute to the success of a startup, emphasizing the importance of the individuals leading the idea and the teams they assemble. There's no lack of ideas, but it's crucial to have the right talent to execute them.
She distinguished between factors within and outside of a startup's control. Internal factors include understanding the market size accurately, especially in the context of large populations. Startups often mistakenly consider a large population as their addressable market without verifying whether the market has the capacity and willingness to pay for their product or service.
Adenike also highlighted the importance of acquiring business skills such as financial management and leadership, especially for young founders. Founders often start businesses straight from educational institutions without prior work experience, which might leave gaps in their understanding of systems, structures, and people management. This is where incubators and programs can play a significant role in teaching corporate governance, accountability, and system understanding.
Externally, she points to the role of policy and regulatory environments, while mentioning the further challenge of regulatory overreach. Founders need to understand the policies impacting their space, but sometimes policies can catch them by surprise, leading to difficulties or even business closures.
Juliet Ehimuan
Country Director, Google
It is understood that the path to innovation in Nigeria is non-linear, this implies that there are brewing innovations from the informal sector, from a tech giant perspective, what is Google doing to encourage innovation from that space?
Juliet Ehimuan noted the value of harnessing innovative ideas into the viable products and businesses that contribute to and build the economy. Powerful ideas can come from anywhere; innovation can be seen in multiple dimensions.
She highlighted several key points:
Building Capacity: There is a need to build digital skills and competencies among people, which she compares to basic literacy in the past. Digital literacy is now seen as a starting point and a playing-field leveler in the modern world.
Digital Skills Training: Google has made significant investments in raising digital capacity, with an initiative to train 10 million Africans in digital skills for free, both online and offline.
Supporting Startups: Google has been investing in startups, particularly through their Google for Startups initiative. This includes support for a broad segment of businesses, including those in the informal sector.
Partnerships and Grants: Juliet mentioned partnerships with the Fate Foundation and the Tony Elumelu Foundation, which included providing $1 million and $3 million grants respectively. These initiatives are designed to provide mentoring, training, capacity building, and financial support to help entrepreneurs bring their ideas to market.
BoostUp Academy: This initiative is aimed at supporting small and medium businesses across sectors, providing entrepreneurs the tools, support, and collaborative environment needed to scale their businesses.
Juliet ended by emphasizing the importance of supporting creative problem-solving and helping individuals and businesses bring their innovative ideas to market.
Google has invested in several tech startups in Africa. What are some key factors that Google considers when deciding to invest in a startup, and how does it support these companies beyond funding?
Juliet discussed Google's support for startups, which includes mentoring, training, access to communities, and infrastructure. Guidance on aspects like product packaging, business operations, and pitching ideas is often as crucial as funding. She highlighted the importance of innovation, focusing on unique solutions to local problems.
The leadership team of a startup is also a key consideration. The competence displayed by the leadership team is a crucial factor for investors, mentioning examples like Flutterwave and Paystack that have gone through Google's accelerator program, while noting that not every startup will achieve the same level of success, which emphasizes the importance of the people driving the startup.
She concluded with the concept of product-market fit and alignment with potential growth areas. Google seeks opportunities for making a difference at scale, with alignment of startups with their own objectives being another factor.
Dr. Hakeem Amuda
Chair of Welding Process Analysis and Surface Modification, University of Lagos
As an academic, how do you believe universities can better support entrepreneurship and innovation in Nigeria? What initiatives have you implemented at UNILAG to foster entrepreneurship among students?
Dr. Amuda discussed several challenges and potential solutions in the context of capacity building and the growth of the technology and innovation space. Here are the main points:
Market-Academia Disconnect: He noted a disconnect between academia and industry, which hampers the onboarding of technology and innovation. There's no platform to harness the potential ideas from students and help them reach the market.
Need for a Platform: To address the disconnect, Dr. Amuda proposed the creation of a platform to interact with established market players and incubate startups, suggesting that university students with promising ideas could benefit from such a system.
Lack of National Strategy: He identified the lack of a national strategy as a barrier to consummating industry partnerships. Dr. Amuda noted divergent goals between researchers and industry, with the former focused on career fulfillment and the latter on service provision, revenue generation, and prosperity growth.
Trust Issues: There are trust issues centered around capacity, infrastructure, and timely delivery. He mentioned an instance where a job was outsourced due to a lack of trust in the university's ability to deliver based on its existing infrastructure.
Lack of Infrastructure and Strategy: Dr. Amuda suggests that a lack of infrastructure and a national strategy hinder collaboration, saying that without a national strategy, it's difficult to address capacity gaps and infrastructural issues.
Curriculum Reform: He advocated for a change in the current curriculum, which he believes stifles innovation. He then highlighted a program at the University of Lagos aimed at exposing students to entrepreneurship and innovation early on, emphasizing the importance of knowledge-driven entrepreneurship.
Solution Framework: He suggested converting existing facilities, like the chemical engineering department's unity lab, into a startup medium, providing more capacity for business to grow. This could build capacity and cut operational costs due to campus resources like power supply.
In your experience, what are some challenges that academic institutions face when trying to collaborate with industry partners? How can these challenges be addressed? What measures do you think can be put in place to encourage more academic-industry collaborations in Nigeria, particularly in the technology and innovation space? How can university-industry collaboration within the Nigerian context be greatly enhanced? How can research carried out in Nigerian universities be more industry-centric?
Dr. Amuda emphasized that any actions taken should be needs-driven to make them attractive to the industry, and identified three key components for achieving this:
Government Initiative: The government should take the lead in implementing need-driven actions.
Industry Initiative: The industry also has a significant role to play in taking initiatives to address its needs.
Development Partners: These are important stakeholders who can help implement these initiatives.
He pointed out that when these three components come together, they can influence education to solve societal problems, whether through physical infrastructure or decentralization, which might garner societal buy-in.
Teju Abisoye
Executive Secretary of Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF)
As the Executive Secretary of Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), what steps has the organization taken to strengthen the innovation ecosystem in Lagos State and Nigeria as a whole?
Teju Abisoye opened by noting that Lagos is considered the innovation capital of Africa. Her key points:
Driving Innovation in Lagos: The Lagos State Employment Trust Fund's primary objective is to drive innovation within Lagos. They've established a program called "workspace vouchers," which provides support to entrepreneurs (referred to as "tech printers") by offering resources like power, infrastructure, and collaborative spaces.
Workspace Vouchers: The workspace vouchers enable entrepreneurs with innovative ideas to access hubs equipped with 24-hour power and collaborative peers, thereby alleviating administrative burdens. So far, they have issued over 400 workspace vouchers to startups and have collaborated with the Innovation System Network to integrate the larger innovation community.
Idea Hub: Teju discussed another program called the Idea Hub, aimed at nurturing young individuals with innovative ideas. The goal is to provide guidance and support to help them determine whether their ideas are worth pursuing.
Supporting Hubs Through Policy and Loans: Teju mentioned that they also support hubs through policy and loans, allowing these hubs to expand and support more tech entrepreneurs within the ecosystem.
Lagos State Research and Innovation Council: She refers to the Lagos State Research and Innovation Council, which is a government-funded initiative to promote research. Funding for research, in her view, is currently insufficient and suggested that the goal should be to generate far more intellectual property, commercializing a significant portion of them to create a sustainable structure.
Link Between Market and Innovation: Teju emphasized the need for a clear connection between market needs and innovation, stating that innovation should address identified gaps in the market to ensure utility and value creation. She noted that there is still much work to be done in this regard.
What role do you think technology hubs and incubators play in supporting innovation in Nigeria, and how can they be made more effective in fostering entrepreneurship?
She emphasized the need for more entrepreneurs to create jobs, rather than job seekers, in Nigeria. To achieve this, Teju suggested:
Decentralized Infrastructure for Hubs: she highlighted the importance of physical infrastructure, particularly access to hardware, which is still a challenge in Nigeria. She propose a more decentralized model for hubs for education to ensure that more young people can access the necessary equipment, mentors, and advisors to build their entrepreneurial ideas.
Local Accessibility: Teju underlined the need for local accessibility to avoid discouraging potential entrepreneurs, using the hypothetical of someone from Ikorodu having to travel to UNILAG every day, observing that such a person might eventually give up due to the inconvenience.
Access to Mentors and Equipped Hubs: She emphasized the importance of access to mentors and adequately equipped hubs for fostering entrepreneurship.
Improved access and decentralization are critical to fostering innovation and creating entrepreneurs in Nigeria.
Ian Barker
In your experience, what are some of the successful innovation models that you’ve seen in developed nations that can be adopted in Nigeria, and how can they be implemented?
As a participant in the panel at the Innovate2Market launch, I was happy to discuss the role of innovation ecosystems in creating a resilient, growing Nigerian innovation culture. Nigeria’s economic potential is obvious, featuring a highly talented population and an immense market.
Innovation ecosystems are location specific, they tend to be specialized to the locations in which they exist. It's not beneficial to simply replicate what's being done in Silicon Valley, but rather to leverage the specific advantages of the local area.
Steps for Building an Innovation Ecosystem: I outlined six steps to foster an innovation ecosystem without replicating Silicon Valley's model:
Government Focus: Government must prioritize innovation, recognizing it as a critical opportunity.
Private Sector Participation: The public demonstration of private sector involvement in Nigerian innovation sends a strong signal to other market players, including international ones.
Interaction Events: Collaboration among skilled individuals leads to specialized know-how and innovation. This collaboration should also include all main actors in an innovation ecosystem, like the public sector, academic institutions, the private sector, foundations, and civil society.
Local Opportunities for Know-How: Many talented Nigerians depart for opportunities abroad, leading to a brain drain. It's important to create incentives so that more skilled people have fulfilling domestic options and become part of strengthening Nigerian industry.
Specialized Infrastructure: Developing infrastructure that is tailored to address specific problems or needs, rather than trying to be all things to all people.
Watch the entire panel discussion here: