NASENI Awards N435.5 Million to Winners of Innovation Competitions

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) has awarded N435.5 million in grants to innovators across Nigeria under its maiden innovation competitions.

The grants were presented to winners of the Innovate Naija, Future Makers, Intra-Agency and Inter-Agency competitions at an award ceremony held yesterday at the State House Banquet Hall, Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The national winner of the Innovate Naija competition received N100 million, while the first and second runners-up received N30 million and N20 million, respectively while the 37 state champions, including Abuja got N2.5 million each, a NASENI statement said.

Similarly, the top six winners of the NASENI intra-agency and inter-agency competitions received a combined N162 million. Of this amount, N140 million went to the three winners of the inter-agency competition, while N22.5 million was shared among the three winners of the intra-agency competition.

The top six finalists in the future makers competition received a combined N23 million in prize money, with the overall winner receiving a N5 million grant prize.

Presenting the awards, President Bola Tinubu, represented by the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Dr Kingsley Udeh, reaffirmed the federal government’s commitment to promoting innovation and developing home-grown technological solutions toward Nigeria’s industrialization.

Udeh described the NASENI innovation competition as a demonstration of the government’s support for Nigerian innovators and urged the beneficiaries to deploy the grants responsibly to improve their solutions and contribute to national development.

He said the federal government believed in the capacity of the innovators to contribute to Nigeria’s future, urging them to use the grants to refine their products, test their assumptions and build sustainable businesses.

Earlier, the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NASENI, Mr. Khalil Halilu, charged the award recipients to continue developing innovations that would address everyday challenges confronting Nigerians.

Halilu urged the innovators to protect their intellectual property, understand their finances, build strong teams and seek partnerships that would complement their capabilities.

He also advised them to remain focused on the problems their innovations seek to solve, listen to their target users, test their products, learn from failures and continually improve their solutions.

Also speaking, the Director of Programmes, AfriLabs, Nanko Madu, commended the federal government and NASENI for recognising innovation as a critical driver of national development and applauded the award recipients for developing solutions to some of the country’s pressing challenges, urging them to remain creative, resilient and entrepreneurial.

She said young Nigerians were increasingly developing solutions tailored to the country’s infrastructure, power challenges, climate and local operating conditions, while reducing dependence on imported technologies and foreign expertise.

The joint awards presentation marked the completion of the maiden edition of NASENI’s innovation competitions, organised to identify innovative ideas capable of being transformed into commercial ventures, creating jobs and contributing to Nigeria’s technological and industrial development.

The event was attended by other dignitaries including Minister of Youth Development, Mr. Ayodele Olawande; Deputy Governor of Kaduna State, Dr. Hadiza Balarabe; Director General, National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), Prof. Matthew Adepoju; and members of the NASENI management, among others.