Flipping the Script: Nigeria the Startup State
Nigeria faces next-level challenges building culture and infrastructure to support innovation. But innovation ecosystems promise an extraordinary level up.
Consider these facts, and consider for a moment what you would do.
Nigeria is the 15th most fragile country in the world, based upon established measures of cohesion, social, political and economic factors. It is 114th for global competitiveness, with poor infrastructure carrying a significant part of the blame. The nation is 126th in economic complexity, falling from 89th over the past 20 years. It is the 30th ranked economy on the strength of crude petroleum and petroleum gas exports, but 141st in GDP per capita.
Yet the Nigerian diaspora is massively successful. Nigerians outperform other groups by significant margins: 54% of Nigerian-Americans hold management positions compared to the 39% average of US-born Americans. They are the most educated of all groups with 61% holding at least a bachelor’s degree versus 32% of the US-born population.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that Nigeria is an economic powerhouse in the waiting, if and when it gets its internal house in order. But waiting for things to change–for other people to act–is akin to surrendering to fate rather than answering today’s problems. It is not what one hopes that matters, but what one does.
So it is that the same talented people who thrive outside the country’s borders are taking up the challenge domestically, introducing a new strategy and with it perhaps a change in fortune. Nigeria is turning to its innovators and entrepreneurs, with the destination being no less than the wholesale “improvement of our society.”
Project Innovation 2 Market.
Armed with a plan, capital, infrastructure, and best-in-class mentorship, hopes and expectations are naturally high.
Project I2M is an initiative led by the Innovation and Technology Management Office (ITMO), University of Lagos, and funded by the UK government through the Research and Innovation Systems for Africa (RISA). It is the goal of the project to help catalyze innovation across the country, creating a structure which allows innovations at whatever level to be funnelled in and commercialized product end up as outputs.
Grass-roots innovation possesses uniquely hopeful, democratic qualities: done right it can lift anyone, help everyone, and it is not limited to a select few. The openness of the I2M program embraces that theme with entry criteria limited to the “potential to make a significant impact in the Nigerian market” while going beyond the usual “individuals, teams and organizations” to specifically encourage women, Nigerians nationwide from all walks of life, and “street innovators” to get involved. (The latter are people whose ideas may be superb but who, for reasons of literacy, economics, and location, rarely have access to structured, funded support. It is an important signal that they are among the roughly 500 initial cohort). This intentionally broad demographic approach declares I2M’s serious intentions and the extent of its departure from previous thinking. The search is truly on for game-changing projects.
The search formally commenced on May 11th, with the launch event at the University of Lagos Faculty of Social Science Auditorium in front of a packed room and livestream audience. Summarizing the speeches and the panel discussion is worth a separate post, but some key names to know as the program develops through the course of the year:
UNILAG:
Vice-Chancellor Folasade Ogunsola, FAS
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Development Services) Ayodele Atsenuwa
ITMO Director Dr. Abiodun Gbenga-Ilori
NITHUB Director Dr. Victor Odumuyiwa
I2M Innovation Director David Alozie
Panelists and Subject Matter Experts
Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Founder, Future Africa
Adenike Adeyemi, Executive Director, Fate Foundation
Juliet Ehimuan, Google Director, West Africa
Hakeem Amuda, (Prof. & Pioneer Head UNILAG Innovation Unit)
Teju Abisoye, (Executive Secretary, Lagos State Employment Trust Fund)
Dr. Sunday Adebisi, Director, ESDC UNILAG
Invited Guest
Mallam Ashafa Ladan, Acting Director of NUC Directorate of Skills Development and Entrepreneurship
UKAid
Alice Omisore, Country Manager of RISA
Leanne Jones (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Preparing for the challenges ahead.
What leapt off the screen as a livestream attendee and panelist was the abundance of talent, determination and pragmatism: characteristics that will be called upon early and often because doing innovation ‘right’ is an immense challenge. Every country, city and university on earth struggles with innovation policy, implementation and management; it confounds many. ITMO, University of Lagos, and RISA all know this, and have come prepared for the challenges ahead.
ITMO summarizes these key challenges to include:
A lack of proper know-how on how to innovate, e.g. agile and minimum viable product development techniques
Limited access to capital for prototyping
Inadequate access to machinery and laboratory equipment
Slow intellectual property protection
Limited access to market and industry linkages
Ecosystem: strengthen conditions for ongoing and sustainable innovation
Intrinsically connected to these challenges is the need for a national innovation policy, raising overall awareness, and sparking a significant upturn in industry partnerships. The Nigeria Startup Act, a “joint initiative by Nigeria’s tech startup ecosystem and the Presidency to harness the potential of our digital economy through co-created regulations” appears to be a policy step in the right direction.
Next steps, outlook and goals.
What happens from here? The first cohort will have access to “end-to-end support, guidance, and funding (for prototyping, patenting, training, business registration, etc.) to ensure inventions and ground-breaking research outcomes from our over 500 innovators and researchers across Nigeria are taken to market within the next 9 months.”
Note how the resources address Nigeria’s challenges, and that the aggressive timeline is highly aligned with agile, minimum viable product thinking. This leads to the project’s overall expectations–beyond the initial cohort–which set a high bar but are in keeping with the urgency, resourcing and talent levels in play:
Supported minimum viable products created: 225
IP protection requests filed: 80
Innovations licensed to industry: 100
Incubated Startups: 20
Robust co-working space to host startups by innovators: 20
The Groundbreakers will provide regular updates from the Innovation 2 Market initiative from inception to its December, 2023 conclusion. I2M is one of those international projects worth everyone’s time to monitor: recall the conditions ITMO, UNILAG and innovative Nigerians nationwide are working under. The impediments are substantial, from energy infrastructure and internet connectivity to serious socio-economic issues. That’s why what’s happening here is so vitally important. Envision the seismic global social and economic benefits of Nigeria emerging as an innovation and entrepreneurship leader when its inventive and creative entrepreneurs catapult it from fragile state to startup state.