The fourth edition of the Nigeria Innovation Summit will focus on “Accelerating Nigeria’s Economic Growth Through Innovation.”
The summit, which will hold August 20/21, 2019, at Sheraton Hotels, Ikeja, Lagos, is an annual event that promotes the need for businesses, organisations, entrepreneurs and government in Nigeria to become more innovative and use innovation to drive sustainable economic development.
It helps Nigeria embrace innovation and move in the direction of digital transformation through the use of emerging technologies and trends, research, development, commercialisation, entrepreneurship and investments.
Each year, the summit provides a platform that fosters collaborations between government agencies, businesses, international organisations, innovators, researchers, the academic community and startups.
While announcing this year’s summit, Mr. Kenneth Omeruo, CEO, Emerging Media, the organisers of the summit, said, “This is the time for Nigeria, with her youthful population, to leverage new technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, Blockchain, Internet of Things, robotics, data sciences, and so on, and apply them in sectors like health, agriculture, financial services, education, renewable energy and clean-techs to solve problems around us. These opportunities are already creating new businesses that are becoming a major source of foreign investments into Nigeria and that is a major way of accelerating Nigeria’s economic growth. This is our motivation each year to host this summit.”
He further explained that small businesses and startups hold the key to sustainable economic growth for the country, as in 2018 when, according to a Partech Africa report, Nigerian startups attracted $306m in funding over 26 deals, and encouraged government to provide more support and enabling environment for Nigerian businesses and innovations to thrive.