Nominees emerge in BusinessDay’s top 25 Most Innovative Brand awards

Rack Centre, General Electric, SunTrust Bank, Coca Cola and Olam have emerged top contenders in the maiden edition of BusinessDay’s Top 25 Most Innovative Companies & Institutions in Nigeria, which will hold on April 28 at Eko Hotels & Suites, Lagos.

BusinessDay, will  honour 25 top organisations in Nigeria that have developed the most inventive and ground-breaking products, ideas and services in 2016 in an award that aims to recognise the institutions, agencies and individuals driving innovation in the country.

On the night, headline sponsor for the event, Air France-KLM will be giving away two business-class tickets at the Awards & Dinner event.

After an exhaustive research conducted by BusinessDay’s Research & Intelligence Unit (BRIU), only 125 companies emerged as nominees in various categories on the basis that their ground-breaking products and services which have have resulted in transforming business models, consumer markets and deployment of service facilitation in unique ways.

Some of the trailblasing companies that made the list in the different categories include Sahel Capital, Banwo & Ighodalo, Grenadines Homes, Dufil Prima, Hotels.ng, Avon HMO, Alpha Morgan Capital, So Fresh Neighbourhood, among others.

Other creative disruptors that made the list of nominees include Hygeia Group, Prestige Assurance, Konga, Wakanow, Notore Chemicals, Agrolay Ventures, FMDQ OTC, the Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS) and GTBank.

The companies are to be recognised as leading innovators and achievers spurring growth, development and creating new economic opportunities for citizens and communities, as well as inspiring the new generation of innovators in shaping Africa’s future. They will be profiled in the first edition of the Innovation Report: Companies to Inspire Nigeria in 2017 which will be published by BusinessDay.

These leading innovator companies include the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme, a $100 million initiative to discover and support 10,000 African entrepreneurs over the next decade with a target of creating one million new jobs to contribute an additional $10billion to Africa’s GDP.

Others are WeCyclers waste recycling firm, solving the urban waste challenge through a fleet of low-cost cargo bicycles and recycling through an SMS-based incentive program and IHS Nigeria which deployed new cutting-edge hybrid power solutions across their portfolio, helping improve performance for the company’s customers, decreasing diesel costs and reducing CO2emissions.

Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC) made the list for creating the first ever mortgage management technology infrastructure, proffering an end-to-end solution for the housing finance market in Nigeria.

JAWA International Limited is in contention for its innovative Antibiotic Dry Syrup Formulations, formulated with purified water.

Paystack was one the first Nigerian tech company to be accepted into the world-famous Y- Combinator progam, based in Silicon Valley. Cafe Neo is Nigeria’s largest coffee chain and our home-grown version of Starbucks, offering coffee varieties such as frappucino, latte, mocha, espresso.

Included in the list is The Lagos State Security Trust Fund (LSSTF) support security agencies including the Lagos State Police Command, OPMESA Marine Police, Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU), Anti-Bomb Squad, State Security Service (SSS), Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Nigeria Prison Service (NPS), Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Immigrations Service, Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and other security agencies

These are just a few of the companies that made the list of nominees advancing successfully the frontiers of innovation and inspiring the new generation of innovators in shaping Nigeria and Africa’s future.

 

OMOSOMI OMOMIA