CEM REPORT | Lagos State says it will continue to support technology because it believes the future of the country and its economy depends n technological innovation and innovators springing up across the country.
The Commissioner of Science and Technology Lagos State, Akeem Fahm, stated that Nigeria needs the various ideas coming from young Nigerian startups to jump start its economy.
The Commissioner stated this while speaking at the grand finale of Nigeria’s first marketing and media Hackathon tagged ‘MarkHack 1.0’.
He further said, the state government realising the potentials in technology, has been supporting the growth of startups and would continue to provide enabling environment for technological innovations to be birthed and nurtured in the state.
“This administration will continue to support technology because we believe that the future of our country, the future of the world depends on technology. The future of Nigeria’s economy is in the hands of the innovators.”
“We survived the COVID 19 pandemic because we fought back with technology. If we have to improve our economy, we’re going to rely a lot on technology,”
The Commissioner while reiterating that the state is committed to harnessing the power of technology, stated that the state government is already putting infrastructure in place by laying fibre cable across the state.
He added that “this will create a superhighway for moving data, which will propel Lagos to a newer height.”
Founder of Eko Innovation Centre and Curator MarkHack 1.0, Victor Afolabi, said technology has disrupted global industries all over the world, and the marketing and media industry was ripe for disruption.
He added that the initiative was a gathering of innovators, entrepreneurs, Policymakers, and Marketing Professionals, to create solutions to real-life Marketing challenges in an intense period of time. Using creativity, technology, and mentoring, resulting in prototypes, fresh new concepts, and innovative usages of tech for Marketing and Media.
“Seeing how technology has disrupted global industries all over the world, we perceived that the marketing and media industry was ripe for disruption. However, they are two things, it is either we collaborate with stakeholders in the industry to create the disruption we anticipate or we allow disruption to happen to us, and we choose to do the former.”
A tech startup LiveBIc, emerged as the overall winner from a list of 10 finalists involved in the pitch at the finals of the hackathon. LiveBIc won the star prize of $10,000 for developing a new platform for content creators to market and deliver their content, Nairametrics reports.
