General News
AfriLabs Takes Nigeria’s Innovation Drive Nationwide, Backs Homegrown Solutions With Funding, Mentorship
By Iyojo Ameh
AfriLabs, in partnership with the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), has intensified Nigeria’s innovation drive with a nationwide programme designed to discover, mentor, fund and commercialise homegrown solutions developed by young Nigerians.
The initiative, implemented through the InnovateNaija and FutureMakers programmes, has reached more than 3,500 young Nigerians across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, supporting innovations in agriculture, manufacturing, renewable energy, healthcare, education, climate technology and other critical sectors.
At the 2026 InnovateNaija Final Pitch Event and Awards Ceremony held at the Banquet Hall of the State House, Abuja, AfriLabs Director of Programmes, Nanko Madu, said the initiative was created to ensure that talented innovators could access opportunities regardless of their location.
“We wanted to make sure that innovation is not limited to people who are already connected to the established innovation ecosystem,” Madu said.
According to her, AfriLabs worked with NASENI to build a platform that could identify innovators across Nigeria and connect them with mentorship, technical assistance, funding, markets and visibility.
She said the partnership was particularly important because Nigeria still depended heavily on imported technologies that were not always designed around the country’s unique realities.
“We have solutions being developed in classrooms, workshops and laboratories across Nigeria. The challenge is identifying them, nurturing them and creating opportunities for them to scale,” she said.
Madu added that technologies developed outside Nigeria might not adequately respond to local infrastructure challenges, electricity supply, climate conditions, languages, cultural realities and purchasing power.
The InnovateNaija programme provided Nigerians aged between 15 and 40 with opportunities to showcase their innovations, receive mentorship and compete for financial support.
The programme produced champions from all 36 states and the FCT, with each state champion initially receiving ₦2.5 million.
The three national winners went on to receive ₦100 million, ₦30 million and ₦20 million respectively, bringing the total national prize money to ₦150 million.
The overall winner, Adaeze Ruth Akpagbula of Abia State, received ₦100 million for her PenKeep Smart Poultry Climate Control System, developed through her company, Farm Speak.
Akpagbula, an agricultural engineer, said the technology was developed to help farmers monitor and manage changing environmental conditions across poultry, aquaculture, greenhouse and smart irrigation systems.
She said climate-related challenges could cause significant losses for farmers, making the adoption of climate-smart technologies increasingly important.
“Climate-smart technology can help farmers improve productivity and reduce the impact of extreme weather conditions,” she said.
Akpagbula, who co-founded Farm Speak with her husband, Kita Okoma, identified funding and infrastructure as some of the major obstacles confronting Nigerian hardware innovators.
She said the ₦100 million award would allow the company to expand production and make its technology available to more farmers.
“We now have an opportunity to expand our production capacity and take this technology to more farmers across Nigeria,” she said.
The programme has also attracted growing support from state governments, with the governors of Abia, Anambra, Enugu, Plateau and Kaduna states matching the ₦2.5 million grants awarded to their respective champions.
The matching intervention increased the grants received by the five state champions to ₦5 million each, signalling greater subnational government involvement in supporting innovation and entrepreneurship.
In Anambra State, Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s Special Adviser on Innovation and Business Incubation, Chinwe Okoli, said the government immediately approved the matching grant after NASENI approached the state.
Representing the governor at the event, Okoli said the initiative fitted into Anambra’s technology-driven development agenda.
She disclosed that 111 startups had so far received about ₦364 million through various state government programmes, while 264,000 people had been trained in digital skills.
According to her, the state is also developing a 13.7-hectare Solution Innovation District to provide infrastructure and support for startups, innovators and technology entrepreneurs.
Beyond InnovateNaija, AfriLabs and NASENI are implementing FutureMakers, a programme targeting young people between five and 16 years and focusing on innovation, problem-solving, design thinking, leadership and entrepreneurship.
Head of the NASENI Innovation Hub, Busola Perez-Folayan, said FutureMakers was deliberately designed to extend innovation opportunities beyond the traditional ecosystem.
She said the programme had attracted participants from different backgrounds, including children from underserved communities, while NASENI’s wider innovation programmes were also promoting innovation among civil and public servants.
Perez-Folayan said InnovateNaija received more than 1,000 applications before public voting produced 36 state champions and eventually 15 national finalists.
She said the support would not end with the awards, as the successful innovators would continue to receive incubation, business development, technical assistance and investor-matching support.
“The goal is not just to identify winners. It is to help these innovators develop solutions that can survive, grow and reach the market,” she said.
Representing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Dr Kingsley Tochukwu Udeh, said the quality of innovations displayed by young Nigerians demonstrated the depth of talent available across the country.
Udeh said the Federal Government was working to bridge the gap between innovation and commercialisation by connecting researchers and innovators with investors and industries capable of taking their ideas to market.
He said President Tinubu had forwarded a bill to the National Assembly seeking the establishment of a National Research and Innovation Development Fund.
According to him, the proposed fund would provide dedicated support for research, inventions and innovations with commercial potential.
“This is about creating the right environment for Nigerian innovators to move from ideas to impact and derive greater economic value from their work,” Udeh said.
The minister’s position reinforced the broader objective of the AfriLabs-NASENI partnership: moving Nigerian innovation beyond awards and recognition towards sustainable commercialisation, job creation and economic value.
With innovators emerging from every part of the country and additional support coming from federal and state governments, the InnovateNaija programme is increasingly positioning innovation as a nationwide development strategy rather than an opportunity restricted to Nigeria’s established technology hubs.
For AfriLabs and NASENI, the next challenge is to ensure that the ideas identified through the programme receive the capital, infrastructure, technical support and market access required to move from the grassroots to the marketplace.
