Young Innovators of Nigeria (YIN) has called on youths to leverage the many opportunities available in the technology ecosystem to improve their lives.
Mr. Andrew Abu, the Founder of YIN, made the call on Tuesday in Abuja, in an event held by the organization to commemoration the country’s 61st Independence Anniversary.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the event was held virtually.
The theme of the meeting was: “Promoting Youth Participation in Innovation and Entrepreneurship for Good Governance’’.
Abu said that technology was the only means to lifting people out of poverty and youths should leverage on it.
“The technology ecosystem in the country in the past two years has attracted over one billion dollars.
“This means that there are lots of opportunities in the ecosystem, adding that youths should make themselves available for these opportunities,’’ Abu said.
He further said that the citizens should learn to trust the country’s indigenous tech ecosystem because it had the capacity to drive the digital economy of the country.
Dr. Wunmi Hassan, the Chief Executive Officer, High Tech Centre for Nigeria, said the youth needed to engage their minds through reimagining themselves in the technology ecosystem and be problem solvers.
Hassan also called on the youth to reposition themselves to fit into the evolving system, realign their solutions and reframe their solutions’ target.
“You need to understand the stakeholder meet with them because irrespective of the solutions you have, it cannot work without the stakeholders.
“The youth need to engage in public policies, the roadmaps, and frameworks of government,’’ Hassan said.
She added hat youths should identify their talents, develop them and invest in themselves as individuals and organizations because the technology ecosystem was transforming the world at a rapid pace.
The Chief Executive Officer, JIDAW Systems Ltd., Mr. Jide Awe said the youth had to be innovative in their approach to addressing problems.
“Other countries, companies are producing what you want to produce and for you to take the market from them, you have to be innovative.
“Innovation and entrepreneurship is demand driven and should be utilized to solve problems.
“We also need to build capacity in our means of collaboration, in problem solving, networking, our social dimensions need to be developed and we also need to build our finance,’’ Awe said.
He urged the youth to focus on what the society encourages in their process of being innovative and pay attention to government policies because it drives development processes.
“Policies drive everything, so you need to pay attention to formulated policies, query the implementation process, make contributions and demands,’’ he said.
He, however, added that government organizations should in turn engage the youth in policy formations because it fostered good governance and transparency.
Mr. Kevin O’Reilly, a representative of Mass Challenge, a global zero-equity start up accelerator, encouraged the youth to participate in their programmes.
He said that Mass Challenge was partnering with universities, media, influencers through the Federal Government to help start-ups in the development of their ideas and innovations.
O’Reilly said Mass Challenge was offering its support through a programme “Bridge to Mass Challenge” , whereby insight, expertise, experience, connections to help build local ecosystems and drive job creation were being provided.
“Bridge to Mass Challenge strengthens innovation ecosystems, drives the creation of high quality jobs by supporting entrepreneurs and connecting them to our global network,’’ he said. (NAN)
