The Lagos State Commissioner of Science and Technology, Akeem Fahm, has said the future of Nigeria’s economy is now dependent on tech innovators springing up across the country. According to him, Nigeria needs the various ideas coming from young Nigerian startups to leapfrog its economy.
Speaking at the grand finale of Nigeria’s first marketing and media Hackathon tagged ‘MarkHack 1.0’, Fahm said the state government has realized the potentials in technology, hence it has been supporting the growth of startups through its backing of the Eko innovation Centre, which organized the Hackathon.
While noting that the state is committed to harnessing the power of technology, he said the government would continue to provide the enabling environment for technology innovations to be given birth to and nurtured.
What they are saying
Speaking at the Hackathon grand finale, Fahm said: “This administration will continue to support technology because we believe that the future of our country, the future of the world depends on technology. The future of Nigeria’s economy is in the hands of the innovators.”
- “We survived the COVID 19 pandemic because we fought back with technology. If we have to improve our economy, we’re going to rely a lot on technology,” he added.
- The Commissioner stated that the state government is already putting infrastructure in place by laying fibre cable across the state, adding that “this will create a superhighway for moving data, which will propel Lagos to a newer height.”
Speaking on the Hackathon and what inspired it, Founder of Eko Innovation Centre and Curator MarkHack 1.0, Victor Afolabi, said the initiative was a gathering of innovators, entrepreneurs, Policymakers, and Marketing Professionals, to create solutions to real-life Marketing challenges in an intense period of time. Using creativity, technology, and mentoring, resulting in prototypes, fresh new concepts, and innovative usages of tech for Marketing and Media.
- He added that “Seeing how technology has disrupted global industries all over the world, we perceived that the marketing and media industry was ripe for disruption. However, they are two things, it is either we collaborate with stakeholders in the industry to create the disruption we anticipate or we allow disruption to happen to us, and we choose to do the former.”
- A tech startup LiveBIc, emerged as the overall winner from a list of 10 finalists involved in the pitch at the finals of the hackathon. LiveBIc won the star prize of $10,000 for developing a new platform for content creators to market and deliver their content.
