By Laju Iren

If there is a place you can smell genius in Nigeria, it’s probably the Co-Creation Hub in Yaba, Lagos.   It’s the place where BudgIT Co-Founder, Oluseun Onigbinde and his team incubated an idea that earned One million dollars in returns, and 400,000 dollars in investment in 2014. Although BudgIT no longer performs its genius from the CCHub, and has most likely repaid the seed funding provided the Hub, the company still gets mentorship from members of its board who are, not surprisingly, members of BudgIT’s board.

But Onigbinde is just one of the many tech entrepreneurs that the CCHub has helped incubate. About 100 young innovative Nigerians go through the sixth floor of the building that houses the hub six days a week. Their access to electricity, superfast internet and a host of bright minds to evaluate ideas is worth much more than the N30, 000 a month which they pay as a membership fee. But it goes beyond that; on that same floor are a fewer number of innovators whose ideas the hub has provided funding ranging from 7,000 to 12000 USD.

The whiff of genius gets stronger on a lower floor which houses an even fewer number of young innovators who have received seed funding ranging from 10,000 to 25,000 USD. This particular floor serves as an incubator for Mamalette, a parenting website specifically targeted at young mothers. The site currently has over sixty thousand likes on facebook; Traclist, an eCommerce platform for small fashion retailers; Asa, a brand of mobile phone apps and games specifically designed to preserve African culture;

Efiko, a mobile social quiz platform designed to enhance learning among secondary school students; Truppr, a social fitness app, as well as Vacant Boards which specializes in providing an online outdoor advertising marketplace. Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola’s Wecyclers also operates from the Hub. Wecyclers offers convenient household recycling service using a fleet of low-cost cargo bikes and is powering social change using the environment by allowing people in low-income communities to capture value from their waste.

Although Wecyclers is just over two years old, the company currently has about 80 employees and 7,000 registered homes on its platform. Weyclers collect selected wastes from these homes, weigh them and give points back to the households. After three months, gifts are given to the households based on the number of points. Adebiyi-Abiola who told Hitech that only about 10% of waste is Africa is collected, also said: “The Co Creation Hub has been of tremendous support to us. They helped us get a grant and have given us space and great mentorship.”

If you can smell genius at the Co Creation Hub, it’s probably because the management of the hub relying on the support of partners like Oracle. According to CCHub Co Founder, Mr. Femi Longe, individuals and organizations can use technology to move Nigeria forward. ‘The bulk of solutions that we create here is largely dependent on technology, and Oracle is an organization that moves technology forward.

Our partnership with Oracle has proved rewarding for all parties involved.” The CCHub currently uses Oracle’s Alice to teach kids programming, it also conducts a Java User Group every weekend for students of tertiary institutions. But the partnership goes beyond software, Oracle has also given two generous grants to the Hub in its five years of existence.” For the Oracle country Manager, Mr. Adebayo Sony: “Technological innovations should serve as a major source of revenue for Nigeria, and this is only possible through Public-Private Partnership.