UNILAG’s Innovation-to-Market initiative boosts innovators, startups with N801m funding

The University of Lagos’s ‘Innovation to Market’ initaitive has boosted innovators’ and startups capital funding with over N801 million ($481,000) since the inception.

This was made known by Abiodun Gbenga-Ilori, project director during the Project I2M Incubator Programme 2024 startup pitch competition cohort1 held recently at the Akoka campus of the university.

Gbenga-Ilori explained that project I2M under the Innovation and Technology Management Office (ITMO) of the institution was established with a mission to support, nurture, and propel Nigerian innovation.

“Our goal is to bridge the gap between great ideas and market-ready solutions by equipping our nation’s brightest minds and researchers with the tools, guidance, and support they need,” she said.

She disclosed that the project which was funded and supported by the UK government through the Research and Innovation Systems for Africa (RISA), has provided an invaluable platform for innovators across Nigeria.

Gbenga-Ilori who is also the visionary of the project said that since inception, the management has been privileged to witness inspiring achievements from their incubator programme alumni.

“In our last cohort, 50 participants completed the programme, with innovations across sectors like healthcare, agriculture, clean energy, and education. Today, many of these ventures are thriving, creating jobs and addressing pressing needs across Nigeria.

“Of those innovators, 10 startups have scaled and have gone ahead to create additional job opportunities. A total of 25 permanent and nine temporary job opportunities have been created, aside from the startup founders. A total capital of $481,000 has also been raised by our incubated startups,” she said.

Sunday Adebisi, the director of industry partnerships at UNILAG similarly said project I2M is designed to redesign the focus of Nigerian youth in such a way to make them self-dependent believing in themselves and whatever they do and the enterprise they have the interest to create.

“We vied for the grant to support this set of youth because we knew for sure that many Nigerian youth are extremely innovative but do not have the wherewithal, the wherewithal is not only the money, it involves the space, the knowledge and the money for them to be able to take their innovations to market,” he said.

Buttressing further on the impact of the project, David Alozie, the director for innovation at I2M explained that within a period of 12 months, the initiative has been able to connect over 1,000 innovators with the market.

Abdulakeem Amuda, the project I2M director of the incubator programme said the I2M project is empowering the ecosystem to solve societal challenges, earn a living and make life better for people.

“The project I2M is a very big ambitious programme to specifically address the needs of street innovators, and help curb unemployment crisis in the country by creating jobs through the innovators taken to the market,” he noted.

The project I2M incubator programme 2024 startup pitch competition cohort1 had 24 innovators pitching their innovations for the N1.6 million grants.

According to the organisers, the 20 best innovations from the pitch competition would get N1.6 million grant each for their startup businesses.

Not less than 562 applications were received by the organisers, while 138 attended the training programme; which had 59 shortlisted to come into the incubator.

Recall, earlier in March, BusinessDay revealed that the project I2M trained and connected 362 novel innovators to the market in its first year of operation.

Resources provided to innovators included; prototype funding, intellectual property (IP) filing, company and tax registration, access to the incubator programme, and industry linkage towards commercialisation.

In the first year, Project I2M accomplished the following; 62 innovators received prototype funding, 67 intellectual property applications were filed, 50 startups were incubated, 40 startups filed with the corporate affairs commission, and 20 startups received seed grants of N850,000.00 each.