•As Oluwatosin emerges winner of NSIA Innovation Prize
By Chinwendu Obienyi
The Federal Government through the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has set a N100 billion per annum target towards the investment seed fund.
This was even as Oluwatosin Olaseinde of MoneyAfrica emerged winner of the maiden edition of the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) Prize for Innovation programme.
Speaking to newsmen on the sidelines of the event in Lagos at the weekend, the Director General, NITDA, Kashifu Abdullahi, said that Nigeria has started the implementation of the start-up Act under which it will establish a start-up investment seed fund.
Abdullahi noted that although the act states that the agency who is working with NSIA to design the funding, needs a minimum of N10 billion per annum, it is targeting N100 billion.
“The Nigerian start-up Act provides legal and institutional framework to leverage and grow and the Act designated NSIA as the fund manager of the start-up investment seed fund. Also, the Act says that at least we should have N10 billion every year in the fund.
We have started working as to how to design and establish the fund and we are targeting not just the N10 billion but we are going for N100 billion so that we should be able to seed at least 1000 early stage startups and above 400 late stage startups. This can help us in creating more than 80,000 jobs in Nigeria and so we are targeting this before the end of this year”, he said.
Congratulating the top 10 finalists of the NPI program, the DG urged them not to relent but constantly innovate, push boundaries and disrupt the status quo as the world currently needs their ideas, energy and passion.
Earlier in his welcome remark, the Chief Executive Officer, NSIA, Aminu Umar-Sadiq, said that the NPI programme is a testament to NSIA’s commitment to play a central role in Nigeria’s digital ecosystem in a manner that is considered suitably adapted and is in line with its mandate which is to drive sustainable economic development for current and future generations of Nigerians.
Umar-Sadiq stated that the NPI program prize is a three stage program which seeks to identify, to empower, to educate and finance early stage technologies that through an accelerator and mentoring program, will provide a platform for entrepreneurs to showcase and scale the digital solutions they will present.
He noted that the programme catalyzes great ideas emanating from Nigerian entrepreneurs to solve Nigerian problems and added that the NSIA is looking at engaging more entrepreneurs, extensive accelerator programme and robust mentoring program.
It will be recalled that NSIA launched an innovation prize with a total prize value of $255,000 to be awarded as a combination of cash and equity investment in the underlying businesses of the winner.
The NPI programme received over 2000 applications representing a diverse array of ideas spanning more than 10 sectors including AI, healthcare, finance, renewables, agriculture, education, logistics, and amongst others.
A transparent screening and selection process, and an intense accelerator and mentoring program ensued with 10 finalists who pitched their ideas to judges. After thorough screening, three start-ups; Extension Africa, LegitCar Africa and MoneyAfrica emerged as finalists with Deloitte revealing that MoneyAfrica emerged winner, taking home a $25,000 prize money while Extension Africa and LegitCar Africa went home with $17,500 and $12,500. Seven innovators- TruQ, Capsa Technology, Apace, Ya-lo, CreditChek, Vella finance and kobo pay, all won the fourth place and went home with $5,000 each.