DG/CEO, National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA,  Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, and Sterling Bank were among the awardees at the Nigeria Innovation Summit, NIS, 2021.

The event with the theme: Charting a New Economic Path through Technology, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, organized by InnovationHub Africa, held recently honoured key innovators at the forefront of the Nigerian Innovation landscape, as well as disruptors bringing positive and empirical impacts as well as progressive solutions to unique challenges. 

Abdullahi was honoured for his effort in technology development in Nigeria through NITDA while Sterling Bank Plc was honoured for innovating consumer/retail banking with digital products.

Of the hundreds nominated for the Nigerian Innovation Awards 2021, only 10 organisations and individuals emerged worthy recipients of this year’s awards, given their impressive track record to innovatively tackle problems and measurable impacts in keeping the Nigerian innovation landscape sustainable.

Other recipients of the award include: Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, for Pioneering & supporting Start-up Development in Nigeria’s Academic Environment.

The Nest Innovation Hub for supporting innovation in the tech & start-up ecosystem; Kuda bank for innovating banking through digital bank among others.

The Summit in its 6th year is an annual event that brings together stakeholders from different sectors of Nigeria’s economy to share ideas, trends, and opportunities around technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship development in Nigeria.

Programme Director of Nigeria Innovation Summit, Mr. Tony Ajah, said:  “The submissions and recommendations from NIS 2021 proves that in this post-COVID era, there is a need to build innovative business solutions, and develop an ecosystem in Nigeria across all sectors drive innovation by promoting local content development, and locally-relevant technological solutions.

“Key stakeholders and innovation actors must have a decentralised collaborative platform to exchange ideas and mobilise the increasing knowledge of innovation to greatly impact on the socio-economic development of Nigeria so that local innovation can solve local issues. This will improve performance across every sector of the economy. NITDA as an agency of government is poised to create opportunities for the development of home grown technology.