There’s something immediately gratifying about listening to and watching young people show off their innovative ideas, in an era of plunging oil prices and last ditch attempts at diversification.
Each time I get to ride in the company of my cerebral sister-in-law Mary Ephraim-Egbas, the conversation almost invariably drifts towards how Nigeria can make it out of the woods and out of its economic woes.
“Young people in Nigeria these days do not think; are incapable of thinking on their feet”, Mary who has struggled with hiring the right staff for her thriving businesses would bemoan, leaving me with little option but to nod in agreement.
“We have lived a lie all these years. Until we get to a point where our educational system places a premium on developing the minds of the young toward providing solutions to everyday problems, Nigeria wont make it into the world’s top economies bracket. Nigeria’s oil has wrought more harm than good. It has led to a nation of very lazy people”, Mary would add resignedly, through gritted teeth.
Innovation excites Mary like it does me. Her office in upscale Lekki is a floor to ceiling motif of creative artistic pieces exhibited like spoils of war.
As I sat taking in the innovative pitches of younger Nigerians in a cavernous room at the Landmark event center in Lagos last week, my endless conversations with Mary kept streaming back. This is it, I said to myself on numerous occasions. This is what this country should have been up to long before oil and natural resources began playing second fiddle to human resources, the world over.
The Aso Villa Demo Day #AVDD2016 is a federal government powered innovative, entrepreneurship and technology initiative currently taking place across Nigeria. It is the first part in a series of events aimed at inspiring a movement within the Nigerian economy. Asides promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, the #AVDD2016 seeks to foster job creation and economic growth through the use of new and emerging technologies.
On the day the event made its way into Nigeria’s commercial and innovation hub, hundreds of young persons were given two minutes each to showcase their solution-driven ideas. Once done with the pitch, a panel grills one with a barrage of questions for another two minutes. The idea must be proven to be scalable, technology driven and capable of improving lives in a nation long used to importing everything from toothpick to Silicon Valley.
There was a pitch here about a software for collecting government revenue, an app for improving farming techniques and yield there, a smart solar powered meter for collecting electricity bills seamlessly, an app for managing crime, one young man had a solution in his palms for managing traffic, there was a smart app for purchasing petrol from the gas station without cash or card and one lady in her early 20s had put to use a health management software……and on and on they went. There were brilliant ideas flying from every corner of the room, one felt like he was in some school.
This was Nigeria. And I had to pinch myself to be sure during intervals.
The hall was brimming with upwardly mobile young men and women bedecked in bespoke suits and pants, ready to take the stage to explain how own innovation will better the lives of the ordinary Nigerian on the street. At some point, the organizers had a hard time managing the crowd of persons who wanted to display their ideas and software applications.
Mary Ephraim would have been proud. Heck, she would have found a solution or two to her hiring woes, right in this room.
The #AVDD2016 has been taken to PortHarcourt and Abuja as well. The best 50 ideas from Lagos and PortHarcourt apiece would make it to the grand finale at the Banquet Hall of the presidential villa in Abuja on July 28, where the best innovators will then be settled on after yet another round of presentations, offered grants to float their start-ups by the federal government and curry the partnerships and sponsorships of top private sector players and venture capitalists.
There were hundreds of ideas from the Lagos event and I’m sure there were that many in the other exhibition centers. Not everyone would make the grand finale or get federal grants, but this is doubtless one federal government initiative capable of spawning an innovation craze and birthing tons of ideas in Africa’s largest economy in the years ahead.
I reckon that the organizers under-estimated the throng of persons who were going to arrive armed with cast-iron pitches, because there was still a long line of persons waiting for their turn to wow the cerebral cast of judges when I hit the road, a happier man than I came in.
The #AVDD2016 should be nurtured into a national pastime because it may well hold the key to Nigeria’s future–a future without the black gold and all its curses.
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The writer is on Twitter as @egbas
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