Technology Startups Urged to Invest in Emerging Technology to Boost Innovation, Disruption

Emma Okonji

Technology startups in the country have been urged to continually invest in emerging technologies that will drive innovation among Small, Medium and Enterprise Businesses (SMEs) and disrupt the old and existing systems across different sectors of the Nigerian economy.

Technology experts made the call at a recent panel session put together by Walure Capital in Lagos, in commemoration of its fourth year anniversary in the technology space.

The panelists include: National President, Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI), Mr. Olusoji Oluwole; Head, Product and Technology Innovation, ALAT, Wema Bank, Mr. Solomon Ayodele; CEO, AFEN Blockchain Group, Mrs. Deborah Ojengbede; and Telecoms/Logistics Expert, Mr. Omotunde Adetula.  

General Manager, Walure Capital, Mr. Obafemi Okubanjo, in his welcome address, explained how Walure Capital, a technology resource company is supporting SMEs growth with technology solutions.

Okubanjo announced plans by the company to support 200 SMEs with N100,000 each, aimed at sustaining retail and small business owners in Nigeria. He said: “We were able to bring together, technology experts from different sectors of the Nigerian economy to share their experiences with tech startups that are building technology solutions across different sectors of the economy, in commemoration of our fourth anniversary.”

According to him, Walure Capital, which operates a technology hub, sees the knowledge sharing as part of its contribution to the growth of the startups and Fintechs in Nigeria, having clocked four years in business as Walure Capital.

Managing Director at Walure Capital, Mr. Samuel Adeleye, who spoke on the importance of leveraging technology for business growth, advised SMES to adopt sustainable strategies and leverage emerging technologies for operational efficiency and business scalability.   

The panel discussion focused on the theme: “Disruptive Technology Innovation- Impact of Social Media on Society, Communication.”

Adetula stressed the need for tech startups to embrace emerging technologies like Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Realities (AR), to address specific challenges in the payment industry.

According to him, financial institutions should be able to use emerging technologies to solve new challenges in the financial sector. There are lots of challenges in the financial sector, especially as they relate to payments. Financial institutions should be able to identify the challenges and apply emerging technologies in solving the challenges.

“Financial institutions need to embrace critical thinking in order to apply the right technology solution that will address any identified challenge. Tech startups should also leverage on emerging technologies to address identified challenges across all sectors of the Nigerian economy, such as Health, Education, Agriculture, e-Commerce, among others. The ability to think deeply and apply technology engineering to address identified challenges, stands out any startups,” Adetula said.    

Olusoji advised tech startups to develop sustainable and viable solutions that could attract Venture Capitalists to invest in their solutions. According to him, Venture Capitalists are in business and will not want to invest in solutions that are not commercially viable.    

Olusoji who was of the view that training should be held to a high esteem among organisations and startups, also stressed the importance of collaboration among tech startups as the best form of training. He said through collaboration, startups could share ideas among themselves and learn better.

Ojengbede tried to convince Nigerians that emerging technologies will not take away people’s job as erroneously believed by some people. She said technology innovation would continue to impact the workforce in a world where automated technology is fast disrupting existing systems. She therefore advised startups to invest in self-development that would help them in developing sustainable technology solutions that would change the world, while stressing the need for collaboration and networking that will enhance skills development.   

Ayodele identified three key factors that would drive technology innovation to include Desirability, Viability, and Visibility. He therefore advised technology solution developers to ensure that the solution they are developing for the customers would be desired by the customers and would meet their needs and desires. For viability, he said solutions should be viable enough to motivate investors to invest in solutions and ready to pay for the solutions. In the area of visibility, he advised tech startups to ensure that their solutions were driven by emerging technology and that such solutions could address the real challenges. According to him, technology is not the future, but the human mind. He therefore advised technology startups to first develop their human minds through deep thinking and support it with technology innovation.

“All the innovations taking place globally are products of the human mind. From Blockchain technology, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence to Augmented Reality, they are products of the human mind. We must therefore pay attention to the human mind that brought about the critical thinking that is currently disrupting existing technologies,” Ayodele said.

He therefore called on regulators to allow open and free regulation that would help the human mind to continue to innovate and to disrupt without any hindrance.