The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure has partnered with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s MIT Solve initiative to support 10 Nigerian innovators with a six-month acceleration programme aimed at improving the commercial viability of their inventions.
The selected innovators will emerge from the DELTA-2 and Developing Engineering Leaders Through Her programmes, initiatives designed to strengthen Nigeria’s innovation ecosystem and promote the development of homegrown technologies.
The programme, to be implemented in collaboration with the Presidential Implementation Committee on Technology Transfer, will provide the innovators with technical support, mentorship and access to global networks to help them refine their business models and take their solutions to market.
Chairman of PICTT, Dr Dahiru Mohammed, disclosed this on Thursday during a media briefing at the committee’s office in Abuja.
He said, “Twenty innovators from the two programmes would pitch their solutions before a panel of judges, from which 10 would be selected for the six-month acceleration programme with MIT Solve in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.”
Mohammed explained that the selected participants would undergo an assessment to identify their individual and collective needs, enabling MIT Solve to develop tailored support programmes.
He said the intervention would help the innovators strengthen their business models, improve their pitches and develop the entrepreneurial leadership required to grow their ventures.
According to him, “the programme will also organise cohort engagements, bringing participants together with industry associations, academic institutions and other stakeholders to build partnerships and improve the visibility of Nigerian innovations”.
Mohammed described the partnership as a significant opportunity for local innovators to access international expertise and networks with government backing.
He said, “The DELTA-2 Programme is focused on helping entrepreneurs access funding and partners from across the world to build on their innovations or to undertake research development and innovation activities that would bring about commercially viable products that would help Nigeria’s industrial development.”
Explaining the focus of the second initiative, he said, “The second initiative is DELT-Her, which focuses on female engineers across Nigeria to access opportunities to showcase their research and innovations and get them to the market.”
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