The National Board for Technology Incubation (NBTI) has established the Technical Working Group (TWG) to coordinate innovation commercialisation activities and data in Nigeria.
While inaugurating the TWG in Abuja, the Director General of NBTI, Dr Kazeem Kolawole Raji, said the Agency has the mandate to lead and coordinate innovation commercialisation activities in Nigeria.
He explained that the Board has established the “NBTI Innovation Commercialisation and Scaling Technical Working Group (TWG)” as a coordination platform to bring together actors supporting innovation commercialisation nationwide.
Raji charged the TWG to “promote coordinated access to innovation commercialisation activities for promising research outputs and prototypes capable of addressing Nigeriansโ needs,” noting that “if properly harnessed, innovations could transform sectors, create jobs and grow the economy.”
He said that better database management of innovation commercialisation data across programmes in the country “will enable better understanding of how innovation commercialisation is progressing in line with national targets and their overall contribution to economic growth.”
“The TWG has its Terms of Reference adopted by participating stakeholders. NBTI established the TWG platform with technical assistance from the WACID team,” he stated.
Also speaking, the Country Lead of WACID, Omowunmi Olabalu Asani, called for greater investment in Nigeriaโs innovation sector. She stated that the platform will “strengthen coordination, reduce bottlenecks for innovators; promote visibility and evidence generation across innovation commercialisation stakeholder groups by mapping innovation commercialisation programmes, investments, innovation hubs, parks, university outputs, research institutions, private-sector actors, investors, CSOs and NGOs.”
She explained that the platform will “bring their activities and data together. This will enable stakeholders to understand better who is doing what, where support is provided, resources mobilised, and results achieved.”
According to her, “The TWG will operate across five pillars: National Coordination, M&E 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 added that “Over the coming weeks, the TWG will 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 includes representatives from innovation hubs, CSOs, NGOs and other stakeholders. They will meet quarterly, with technical subgroups established as needed.
