Experts Advocate Collaboration among Tech Companies to Strengthen Businesses

Raheem Akingbolu

Experts in the tech space have advised innovators and tech companies in the country to collaborate in order to create a better tomorrow.

This advice was given in Lagos recently, at the COCREATE event, Nigeria’s first exhibition for innovators in the tech industry to showcase innovative businesses and individuals with interesting solutions that make life simple and better.

 Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency, (NITDA) Kashifu Inuwa Abdullah who was one of the experts at the event theme: Collaborative innovation for a better tomorrow said, innovators have to look beyond today by coming together and finding solutions to societal problems. Kashifu said, “this event is key to the success of all of us because technology happens in clusters.”

However, he said, there must be clarity of the government’s programmes to the innovators and what the tech hubs are all about.

Also speaking, Personal Adviser to Lagos State Government on Science and Technology, Olatunbosun Alake said, because government recognises the efficacy of science and technology in the society, the state government has funded about 60 tech hubs and some of the startups have been able to get bigger funding to grow their businesses. Olatunbosun added that the state government is also funding research in University of Lagos, Lagos State University, Yaba Tech in order to grow technology in the state.

“The Science Research and Innovation Council has been doing a lot over the past two years. Some of the things we do is ecosystem matching to reduce the bureaucratic process of getting government contracts. We match them with the right agencies to use their products or enable their services to reach new audiences that are relevant to the world,” he said.

While addressing participants earlier, Johnson Anorh, convener of Gage Awards said, “the essence of setting up Gage Award and Cocreate as the learning aspect of it is because we saw a space in tech where brands are not being celebrated. Nigeria is becoming a hub in Africa, because it’s one of the biggest centers in Africa and when we checked we found out that investments are not running into the tech industry.”