NBTI Establishes Technical Working Group To Drive Innovation Commercialisation In Nigeria

The National Board for Technology Incubation (NBTI) has established a Technical Working Group (TWG) to coordinate innovation commercialisation activities and improve the management of innovation-related data across Nigeria.

Inaugurating the group in Abuja, the director-general of NBTI, Dr Kazeem Kolawole, said the agency had the mandate to lead and coordinate innovation commercialisation activities in the country.

Kolawole explained that the NBTI Innovation Commercialisation and Scaling Technical Working Group was established as a coordination platform to bring together stakeholders supporting the commercialisation of innovations across Nigeria.

He charged members of the TWG to promote coordinated access to commercialisation opportunities for promising research outputs and prototypes capable of addressing the needs of Nigerians.

According to him, properly harnessed innovations have the potential to transform key sectors, create jobs and contribute significantly to economic growth.

He also stressed the importance of strengthening the management of innovation commercialisation data, noting that a comprehensive database would enable stakeholders to better assess progress against national targets and measure the sector’s contribution to economic development.

“The TWG has its Terms of Reference adopted by participating stakeholders. NBTI established the TWG platform with technical assistance from the WACID team,” he said.

Speaking on the initiative, the Country Lead of WACID, Omowunmi Olabalu Asani, called for greater investment in Nigeria’s innovation ecosystem.

Asani said the platform would strengthen coordination, reduce bottlenecks confronting innovators, improve visibility and generate evidence across innovation commercialisation stakeholder groups.

She explained that the initiative would map innovation commercialisation programmes, investments, innovation hubs, technology parks, university outputs, research institutions, private-sector actors, investors, civil society organisations and non-governmental organisations.

According to her, bringing the activities and data of these stakeholders together would provide a clearer picture of the innovation ecosystem.

“This will enable stakeholders to better understand who is doing what, where support is provided, resources mobilised and results achieved,” she said.

Asani said the TWG would operate across five key pillars: National Coordination, Monitoring and Evaluation and Innovation Intelligence; Innovation Infrastructure and Commercialisation Pipeline; Enterprise, Investment and Market Adoption; Policy, Industrialisation and Economic Impact; and Ecosystem Partnerships, Inclusion and Sustainable Scale.

She disclosed that over the coming weeks, the group would map existing programmes and support structures, establish baselines, identify ongoing activities, harmonise indicators and reporting arrangements, and begin operationalising the NBTI Innovation Commercialisation Observatory.

The TWG comprises representatives of innovation hubs, CSOs, NGOs and other stakeholders within Nigeria’s innovation ecosystem.

The group is expected to meet quarterly, while technical sub groups will be established where necessary to address specific areas of innovation commercialisation and scaling.