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The National Information Technology and Development Agency (NITDA) is awarding two million naira each to five Nigerian startups adjudged winners in the Creativity and Innovation Challenge inaugurated as part of the activities to celebrate this year’s World Creativity and Innovation Day.
Organised by the NITDA with the theme: “Inspiring Creativity & Innovation in Nigerian Digital Economy”, the winners emerged from about 800 entries that competed for the N10 million award prizes.
Minister of Communications and Digital Economy Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami while commending the winners and NITDA for the exercise expressed confidence in the ability of young Nigerians to salvage the economy through their innovations.
“It is indeed really encouraging that in Nigeria our future in digital creativity and innovation is very bright. There is no doubt about this. If you look at the ideas that are coming up from the discussion. Our young innovators that pitch today the quality of the presentation before originality of the presentation and many more. It is indeed very clear that our future in digital innovation is very bright,” said the minister.
N10m + President’s Commendation Letter + Entrepreneurship mentorship
In addition to receiving “a letter of commendation to be signed by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the winners will also be part of NITDA”s innovations and entrepreneurship scheme,” Pantami assured.
Also in the same vein, Director General, NITDA, Mr Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi affirmed that the IT regulatory agency was committed to driving innovation as the nerve of the digital economy. Hs words:
Innovation is critical tool to implementing NDEPS -Abdullahi
“At NITDA, we have identified innovation as a critical tool for implementing the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS). We have taken bold steps to drive our nation’s prosperity by boosting digital innovation and entrepreneurship.”
Nigeria’s evolving digital innovation economy cannot be ignore and offers encouraging growth patterns, said Abdullahi.
“The Nigerian digital innovation space is making waves on the African continent and beyond. According to a report by the Startup Genome and a survey on Nigerian Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs), there are about 6,500 MSMEs, some in the digital space, with Lagos having about 700 digital innovation registered businesses worth over $2 billion. It is also noteworthy that Nigeria’s bustling fintech ecosystem, with over 200 fintech standalone companies, has attracted global attention and venture capital investment.
Adding: “Innovation is a vital key to the prosperity of any nation, and our prospects for future economic growth largely hinges on our ability to innovate. Innovation is the ability to invent and drive those inventions towards commercialisation and job creation. It is not surprising that the wealthier nations lead in innovation. Even emerging superpowers like China are now reaping the benefits of their technology-innovation initiatives and policies.”
To go by reports, the World Creativity and Innovation Day was founded on 25 May, 2001 in Toronto, Canada. The founder of the day was the Canadian Marci Segal, who was studying creativity in 1977 at the International Center for Studies in Creativity.
The United Nations would later designate 21 April as World Creativity and Innovation Day to raise the awareness of the role of creativity and innovation in all aspects of human development. The world body believes that creativity with innovation is problem-solving.
