The Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority has said it is set to unveil the maiden edition of the NSIA Prize for Innovation Programme.
In a statement issued by NPI, the programme which would be launched at an event in Lagos, is structured as a business enhancement programme to support early-stage, growth-driven ideas through education, mentorship, and financing.
The statement said the programme is a strategy-based initiative of the NSIA Board which would run for at least three years. Through the NPI, the NSIA plans to identify, build, and channel the country’s latent potential in innovation and technology to catalyse economic growth, enhance the nation’s productive capacity, create jobs, and optimise resource sustainability.
In addition, the NPI is designed to encourage and support creativity and ingenuity within the technology space and to fund new ideas that could result in cost-effective, scalable, and transformative positive impact.
The NPI’s priority sectors are technology-enabled businesses in key seven priority sectors of the Nigerian economy namely financial services, agriculture, health, education, manufacturing, renewables and power. The priority sectors were selected given the appreciable impact innovations in these sectors can have on the Nigerian economy.
With the programme, the NSIA board expects to catalyse the growth and development of the Nigerian technology ecosystem by identifying budding Nigerian innovators, enhancing their capabilities, and providing a platform to showcase and scale these technological solutions globally over multiple cycles of the programme.
The statement read in part that, “In line with NSIA’s vision of playing a given the long-term significance of the programme, the initiative will also serve as a catalyst to unlock the conscious competence of the next generation of Nigerians across a myriad of fields particularly in the digital age.
“The programme will adopt a three-staged competition at the end of which ten finalists will emerge and win various prizes.”
