LEADERSHIP Group Limited has opened channels of partnership with the National Board for Technology Incubation (NBTI) to promote entrepreneurship in Nigeria and fight poverty through technology as well as enhance the commercialisation of Nigerian products in both domestic and international markets.
Indications to this development emerged when a delegation from the media giant, led by the senior director Advert, Fadilah Ismail and director of Special Projects, Abdulmumin Balogun, paid a courtesy visit to the director general of NBTI Kazeem Kolawole Raji at the NBTI headquarters in Abuja on Wednesday.
Ismail in her remarks noted that the partnership is necessary to promote awareness on the comprehensive and innovative achievements and investment of the agency towards making Nigeria a more technologically productive society.
She said “We want to give as much coverage as possible to the productivity going on in NBTI and its quest to increase the commercialization of made –in- Nigerian products in both the domestic and international market.”
Also speaking during the visit, Balogun said that the collaboration is strategic in the sense that it will enhance the capacity for mutual benefits and strengthen the drive to eliminate poverty and create jobs through entrepreneurship which is one of the core mandates of the NBTI.
Welcoming the LEADERSHIP crew, the NBTI boss said the partnership has come at the right time as the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu’s government holds a lot of prospects for young people through massive investment in entrepreneurship.
The NBTI boss described LEADERSHIP as the channel to reach out to people and showcase the efforts of the agency especially in the digital age, even as he urged the media giant to propagate the innovations of the agency and the efforts of President Tinubu to assist Nigeria’s economic sustainability.
He said “The best form of employment is entrepreneurship which is one of our core mandates. NBTI has 36 Technology Incubation Centres (TICs) across the country, we have six regional offices and 15 extensions and more are still coming. It means we have the reach and that is one of the reasons the President decided to draw people from the private sector to the technology and ICT space within the country.”
He emphasised that President Tinubu is working towards making Nigeria’s GDP reach $1 trillion and this effort is being enhanced through a knowledge-based economy, where knowledge and skills will transform Nigeria’s non-oil sector.
Raji noted that the agency has technology parks and hubs in the geo political zones that will give graduating students from TICs the opportunity to migrate to technology hubs and parks where they will have production of items on a large scale.
“Nigerians have got talents, we have a brilliant set of people but we need to channel that energy towards productive ventures and that is why Mr President is encouraging Nigerians to exploit their skills and talents to grow the economy.
“There are young people who have exploited the opportunity that we have provided to drive the economy. Most of the products that we make in NBTI are qualitative but we need to deepen the efforts and you can imagine the economic growth, you can imagine the GDP growth rate in the non –oil sector such as agriculture and manufacturing which contribute more to the GDP,” he said.
He added that the agency also wants to help Nigerian entrepreneurs to standardise their products through branding as a marketing concept in order to make the products more acceptable in the international markets.
