The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) has announced a N250m competition to support home-grown innovations.
The Innovate Naija challenge, launched in partnership with AfriLabs, was unveiled at the GITAX Nigeria Startup Festival in Abuja on Thursday. Anas Balarabe Yazid, special adviser on commercialisation to NASENI’s executive vice-chairman, said the initiative aimed to identify and scale local products that could also succeed globally.
Applications are open across Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, with five entries to be shortlisted per state. The public will then vote for 37 winners, who will compete for places in a final pitching event at the NASENI Invention Festival.
Successful entrants will gain funding, incubation support, and access to NASENI’s 12 institutes and its centre of excellence in Abuja, which provides laboratories, machinery, and manufacturing facilities.
Yazid added that state governors and the FCT minister had been invited to provide matching funds for winners in their jurisdictions.
The challenge is part of wider efforts by NASENI, under the executive vice-chairmanship of Khalil Suleiman Halilu, to strengthen Nigeria’s innovation ecosystem and promote the commercialisation of local research.
Leave feedback about this