NCC visits Tech startups in six geopolitical zones, encourages enterpreneurship, innovation

Success Damian:

Nigerian telecommunications regulatory body, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has embarked on visitation to the six geopolitical zones of the country in order to encourage entrepreneurship and innovations.

Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, stated this on Monday at a two-day event on Emerging Technologies Consultative and ICT Innovation Forum being held at the University of Lagos.

"The commission in its effort to encourage tech entrepreneurship and innovation in the ICT sector has embarked on visitation to various tech startups across the six geopolitical zones to assess their development and challenges," Dambatta said.

With the theme: Developing Nigeria's Tech Eco-System; Imperative for Improving Local Content, Danbatta said the ICT Innovation Forum has become necessary to promote local content with emphasis on the Tech ecosystem, identifying unmet needs and facilitate Public Private Partnership (PPP). 

"With the growing pressure of globalization, every government as well as captains of industries are charged with the burden of finding ways to ensure that we remain competitive and capable of fulfilling local demand. Not only that, but given the wide availability of information technology to serve markets the world over, it is imperative that the right frameworks be developed to enhance the ability of indigenous companies to maximally explore and exploit local opportunities, as well as remain globally competitive," Dambatta disclosed.

Represented at the occasion by the Director of Legal and Regulatory Services, NCC, Yetunde Akinloye, Dambatta stated that whereas Mobile Network Operators have developed infrastructure to support voice services and access to data, it has become expedient for them to unlock new services and sources of value generation and revenue streams in their operations.

 "It has therefore become necessary to innovate on how to access segments of the Consumer wallets not presently allocated to communication by providing solutions to Consumer needs in other verticai areas of education, health, government services, etc., made available through telecoms network infrastructure. We have to be innovative to make different aspects of our lives work." 

Danbatta said the forum would help all to create awareness and underscore the need to be innovative. "I am positive our engagement today will improve our collaborative efforts and actions aimed at accelerating, innovation and economic growth in Nigeria," Dambatta stated.

Director, Research and Development, NCC, Nwokonneya stated that Tech hubs could be understood as a community, informal or otherwise, that brings together young talents to foster innovation. He added that Tech hubs are ideation spaces or incubators where people with ideas to solve problems cluster together and become part of the economic infrastructure of the society and in turn bring prosperity to the community. 

Nigeria’s growing economy, he said, needs to leverage on entrepreneurs’ innovations that would help create jobs for the teeming youths, as well as, the large number of university graduates in the field of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) from the increasing number of public and private universities. 

"Responsive government bodies, therefore, need to encourage tech hubs to utilize their immense economic importance in reducing unemployment and stimulating innovations, leading to digital inclusion, social and economic development in the society.

"It is with the above directional focus that the Nigerian Communications Commission has conceptualized this lCT Innovation Forum with the objective, amongst others, to assist communications industry stakeholders and practitioners With a View to encourage introduction of innovative services and practices in line with international practices and trends towards sustaining development of digital infrastructure and consistently attaining the objectives of its enabling Law, the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA), 2003," Nwokonneya added.


He said "Propelled by a passion to create Nigeria's "Silicon WaZoBia”, the NCC has identified Lagos State as a location with a large cluster of tech hubs in Nigeria.

"This therefore informed our choice of Lagos State as the preferred location for the maiden edition of the lCT innovation Forum meant to attract participating tech hubs in the South West zone. It is our expectation that more start-ups would debut after this Forum," he said