Director-General of NITDA, Malam Kashifu Inuwa, said this at the closing ceremony of a one- week training of hub managers drawn from the 36 states of the federation and the FCT held in Abuja on Friday.
Inuwa said NITDA was driving a national initiative to boost economic growth through innovation and startup hubs across the country in line with President Bola Tinubu’s agenda on economic diversification.
“What we have done here is to bring hub managers from 36 states and the FCT.
“We have trained them before, virtually, on how to create an innovation ecosystem at state level. When they go back they will train startups in their states.
“We want each hub to train five startups. We’ve done a pilot before here in Abuja and some states around and we trained 50 startups, those startups have created 179 direct jobs and 1500 indirect jobs.
“Based on that data, we believe if we train these five startups per state, it means we will train 185 startups in a state, and each startup would create five jobs.
“When you do that, you have 740 direct jobs, and that will create 7400 indirect jobs and this will in addition domesticate innovation at state levels,” he said.
According to him, NITDA wants the beneficiaries to use technology to solve problems in their own states.
National Coordinator, Office for Nigerian Digital Innovation (ONDI), a subsidiary of NITDA which anchored the training, Ms Victoria Fabunmi, said the it would help in bridging the digital divide in every sector.
“We have, as a nation, priority areas that the President has given based on his mandate to leverage innovation. To accelerate and to catalyse some of those areas are agriculture, trade, healthcare, education.
“We see through this cohort a lot of solutions coming out in this area, in agritech, edutech, Fintech, healthtech, and even to facilitate commerce and trade.,” she said.
She further said it would amplify the work the agency was doing in digital literacy thereby ensuring that young people were inspired to adopt technology, become enthusiasts and innovators who solve problems.
She also said that ONDI was making efforts to boost female participation in startups, with a focus on nurturing female innovators nationwide.
Managing Partner at Co-Creation Hub (CC Hub), one of the partners on the programme, Ms Lucy Mmadu, highlighted the importance of democratising access to innovation and supporting hub managers with capacity building initiatives.
Mmadu said empowering them would create thriving ecosystems in underserved regions.
“This is an opportunity to democratise access to innovation, access to resources and access to skills to ensure that we can also build a thriving innovation ecosystem across the country.
She said CC Hub was committed to supporting the hub managers as they implemented the knowledge gained from the training.
Mrs Chinyere Otuonye of Sparks Ventures Hub, Enugu, a participant, praised the organisers for equipping them with practical tools for incubating startups and building a database of ecosystem players to track progress and impact.
Ms Aida Isah, Hub Manager for Startup Kano, said she would return to her base and restructure her team and reshape their mindset for maximum impact in the ecosystem.
The iHatch programme is a collaborative venture between NITDA and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) aimed at empowering Nigeria’s startup ecosystem by supporting them and innovation hubs with resources.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the training was the 4th Cohort in the series.
(NAN)