Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, the Director General of the National Information and Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has received an award for contribution to the growth of Technology in Nigeria.
The award came during the Nigeria Innovation Summit 2021 with the theme: Charting a New Economic Path Through Technology, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, organized by InnovationHub Africa.
The Summit in its 6th year is an annual event that brings together stakeholders from different sectors of Nigeria’s economy to share ideas, trends, and opportunities around technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship development in Nigeria.
The three-day event was dedicated to promote innovation in all sectors of the economy in Nigeria.
Keynote Sessions and Presentations, Innovative Showcase by startups, NiX Talks, and Panel Discussions/Interactive Sessions were conducted by Umar Garba Danbatta, EVC, Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi DG/CEO, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Lanre Ogungbe, CEO IdentityPass, Tony Bailetti, Chair of the Board Nigeria-Canada Trade & Investment Group, Oluwajoba Oloba, Co-Founder, The Nest Technology Innovation Park, among others.
The crowning of the summit was The Nigeria Innovation Awards Night (NIAN) 2021. The Nigeria Innovation Awards recognises key innovators at the forefront of the Nigerian Innovation landscape, as well as disruptors bringing positive and empirical impacts and progressive solutions to unique challenges.
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Only ten organisations and individuals out of the hundreds nominated for the awards 2021, emerged worthy recipients, given their impressive track record to innovatively tackle problems and measurable impacts in keeping the Nigerian innovation landscape sustainable.
Apart from Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, othrr awardees include Sterling Bank Plc. for innovating consumer / retail banking with digital products, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) for Pioneering & Supporting Startup Development in Nigeria’s Academic Environment and The Nest Innovation Hub for supporting innovation in the tech & startup ecosystem.
Also, Kudabank for innovating banking through digital bank, Chaka for innovating retail investment opportunities for Nigerians, Utiva for innovating education through Online Learning, Helpmum for Innovating maternal and infant health, Greenage Technologies, for innovating energy through indigenious smart solar inverters and Treepz for innovating mass transport through bus-hailing.
“The submissions and recommendations from NIS 2021 proves that in this post-covid era, there is a need to build innovative business solutions, and develop an ecosystem in Nigeria across all sectors to drive innovation by promoting local content development, and locally-relevant technological solutions,” Tony Ajah, Programme Director of Nigeria Innovation Summit said.
The Nigeria Innovation Summit 2021 had participation from five continents, delegates from government agencies, diplomats, academic communities and research institutes, international organisations, investors, innovators, business/thought leaders, innovators, startups and students.
Key stakeholders and innovation actors must have a decentralised collaborative platform to exchange ideas and mobilise the increasing knowledge of innovation to greatly impact on the socio-economic development of Nigeria so that local innovation can solve local issues,” Ajah said.
And this year’s Summit received support from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), The Next Technology and Innovation Hub as partners, and was sponsored by IdentityPass and Sterling Bank Plc.
