Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi has said that digital economy innovation and entrepreneurship play a huge role in creating value and prosperity in any nation.
Abdullahi, who spoke on Thursday at the groundbreaking ceremony of the Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre, Abuja, the first of its kind in Africa, noted that today, the digital economy is the fastest growing economy in Nigeria and in the world in general.
He said that the centre is critical for Nigeria’s journey to digital economy, explaining the enormous investment in the initiative by NITDA and opined that to sustain and consolidate the growth, there is need to ignite innovation and entrepreneurship in the digital space.
“COVID-19 has impacted our lives in an unprecedented way, many aspects of our lives – work, education, economy, entertainment, have moved online. According to data compiled by Visual Capitalist, in a single internet minute in 2020, consumer spent more than 1m USD, over 42 million messages shared via WhatsApp, more than 1.4 million people make video or voice call, over 150,000 messages shared on Facebook, more than 319 new accounts created on Tweeter, Linkedin users apply for over 69,000 jobs, more than 6,500 packages shipped by Amazon and over 200,000 people participate in Zoom meetings.
“Digital economy is mainly driven by rapid business innovation, using digital technology to deliver the new customer value proposition, new business model, new organizational structure, new customer experience, operational excellence and enhanced products and services.
“This cannot be achieved in isolation; we need innovation ecosystem. It is obvious innovation is not evenly distributed globally but there is something common among all innovative countries. They all have a strong innovation ecosystem. To build a vibrant innovation ecosystem in Nigeria we have keyed into the MIT program called REAP – Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program.
“REAP is a global capstone initiative that provides an opportunity for communities to engage with MIT in an evidence-based and practical approach to strengthen the innovation ecosystem. This centre will serve as a platform for the MIT-REAP initiative.
“Innovation is a process of taking an idea from inception to impact. To express it in a mathematical formula innovation is invention multiply by commercialization. It is a product of invention and commercialization. This means innovation is zero when the invention is zero or when commercialization is zero. You must have the two to be innovative. Commercialization is about entrepreneurship, it is about starting and growing a new business.
“According to MIT, there are two types of entrepreneurship, Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) and Innovation Driven Enterprise (IDE). SME is short term, linear growth and target local market while IDE is long term, exponential growth and target global market. Our centre will focus on IDE because IDE is the game changer when it comes to value and prosperity creation. It is through IDEs you can have unicorn companies, a privately owned company with more $1B valuation,” Abdullahi said.