This Friday, BusinessDay will hold the maiden edition of the Top 25 Most Innovative Companies and Institutions in Nigeria Awards, which recognises and honours organisations that have developed the most inventive and ground-breaking products, ideas and services in 2016.
Air France-KLM, one of the world largest airlines, is headline sponsor for the event.
The Top 25 Most Innovative Companies & Institutions Awards will take place at the Eko Hotels and Suite on April 28, 2017.
Anchored by its research arm, BusinessDay Research and Intelligence Unit (BRIU), the Awards was conceptualised to celebrate the achievements of those who are spurring growth, development, creating new economic opportunities for citizens and communities, and inspiring the new generation of innovators in shaping Africa’s future.
BusinessDay seeks to advance the philosophy and culture of innovation in our nation space, and recognise the people and companies driving it. Today, innovation is a key driver of organic growth for all companies – regardless of sector or geography. Recognising the organisations, agencies and individuals that are driving and advancing the culture of innovation, the Awards brings together industry leaders across all sectors.
Nigeria’s economy plunged into a recession in 2016, a situation that has challenged the operational existence of many of Nigeria’s big and small companies across all sectors. But in every challenge, there is an opportunity. Faced with declining demand, policy inconsistency and uncertainty, acute scarcity of foreign exchange, and dwindling revenues, players in both the private and public sector have had to dig deep into their innovative capacity to do extra-ordinary things in 2016.
The Awards focuses on the different strategic industries in the country, and comprises the most innovative in technology, banking, insurance, e-commerce, agriculture, and telecommunications, among other sectors. Furthermore, the various sectoral awards include sub-categories for most innovative product, most innovative service and overall most innovative.
Summarily, the Awards seek to showcase the Companies and Institutions that contributed immensely to the sustainability of their customer-base, bottom-line, overall organisational growth, as well as the socio-economic development of our country.
Subsequently in line with the Awards, BusinessDay will also be publishing the Innovation report: Companies to Inspire Nigeria in 2017, highlighting the various nominees and the groundbreaking product, service or idea for which they were selected and short-listed.
For the different award categories, the Award Committee employed various parameters and criteria in the process of selecting and short-listing the nominees out of hundreds of thousands of organisations, institutions and businesses registered and operating in Nigeria.
Subsequently, some of the trailblazing Companies that made the list in the different categories include Airtel Nigeria, SystemSpecs, Prestige Assurance, Dangote Group, GTBank, Iroko TV, Spectranet, Chivita, among others.
Some of the trailblazers thatmade the list of nominees include: Haima Health, a Nigerian indigenous youth-led non-profit, non-governmental organization established to promote regular, voluntary, non-remunerated blood donations in Nigeria, made the short-list in the Most Innovative Charity or NGO category.
Ageless Physiotherapy Clinic, operators of the largest stand-alone physiotherapy and nerve recovery centres for all neurological cases also made the list of the Most Innovative Healthcare Firms in Nigeria. Nigerian Breweries was recognised for initiatives aimed at enhancing the sorghum value chain in Nigeria, especially with relation to the development of the new Hybrid Sorghum/Cassava in the Most Innovative in Agriculture category.
Compex Africa was nominated for pioneering a homegrown online marketplace for buying & selling businesses in Nigeria, while Loshes Chocolate made the list for its Premium Single-Origin, Bean-to-Bar, Hand-Crafted Chocolate using locally sourced beans.
Olam’s visionary stride in deepening agricultural activities in the medium to long term via investing in animal feed manufacturing, poultry breeding and hatchery with Nigeria’s largest integrated mill; among other critically important projects and initiatives being undertaken by the Company, also earned them a spot on the list of nominees.
Other companies recognised as nominees include Jumia Food, Nigeria’s premier online ordering and food delivery website with over 100 restaurants subscribed to its service. FarmCrowdy, Nigeria’s first digital crowd funding platform for farmers.
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. Their innovations are truly revolutionary and worthy of recognition and commendation.
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