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Eko Innovation Hub has joined the tech-hub ecosystem in Lagos and the over 80 innovation hubs in Nigeria, touted as Africa’s tech-hub centre. Lagos is already home to almost 40 innovation hubs in all and ahead of Cape Town, South Africa and Nairobi, Kenya as Africa’s major technology hub ecosystem.
Eko Innovation Hub is opening its doors to further thicken the economic value proposition of Lagos as nerve centre for innovation hubs. As the promoters put it: “Eko Innovation Hub is a strategic move to use technology as the key driver for development and to bolster smart economies in the country.”
The brainchild of Victor Gbenga Afolabi, CEO and Founder and of GDM Group, the new hub will be focusing on building new career lines and jobs that are currently not in existence; and are chiefly the outcomes of new and emerging technologies. “We are targeting new jobs, new skills and emerging opportunities reflecting the dynamics of technology and trends in the ICT sector,” said Afolabi in Lagos. He said the hub is designed to strategically increase entrepreneurial and technological capacity across the state.
Eko Innovation Hub will serve both as an incubator and accelerator for startups in Lagos.
According to him: “Tech hubs are a vital part of the entire start-ups ecosystems by providing platforms and opportunities for collaborations and building support structures that are important to the growth of new startups,”
Eko Innovation Hub already has the support of Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu who has assured the promoters that his government has an unwavering commitment to using technology to advance the Lagos development agenda.
Keeping business growing, sustaining a Lagos that is attractive to businesses is at the heart of government’s economic blueprint, said Sanwo-Olu while assuring the startup ecosystem of continuous support. “Lagos will remain home to businesses and innovations,” said Sanwo-Olu.
“So, it is for Lagosians to come and take advantage of it once it fully becomes operational. It is part of our contribution to the things we preached while we were campaigning, that we would make Lagos a tech hub,” he said.
“Technology is the way to go, it is the way of the future and it is the way the entire universe is going to.
“Everybody is using technology to develop everything that we need. We are believing that from this place, things around the THEME concept that has to do with the environment, education, transportation and health would be developed” added Sanwo-Olu.
For Afolabi, Lagos holds strong attraction for startups thus the reason for setting up in the city. His words” “We saw in the Lagos manifesto an agenda to make the State a 21st century economy. The only way to create a 21st century economy is to make sure you are creating businesses and solution to problems that are driven by innovation and technology.”
