The Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, today said that government would set up a Creativity and Technology Council to support innovation and startups in the nation’s creative industry.
Osinbajo, who gave this hint when he visited an innovation hub, Ventures Partners, in Abuja, explained that already government had an industrial and competitiveness council where leading industrialists advise it on policy.
He explained that in the industrial and competitiveness council which he chaired, comprised top players in manufacturing and other industrial areas who help to develop and shape policies as well as bring out the challenges in the business environment.
According to him, the proposed creative and technology advisory council would involve people doing startups, creative and entertainment industry, noting further that some of the policies that need to make the nation’s industrial environment friendly and more interesting have to be developed by those innovation.
Osinbajo noted that innovators were contending with peculiar issues and unless someone experiencing such is able to seat with the CBN governor and the ministers of finance and trade and investment, it will not be easy to resolve them.
“We are looking forward to doing this and I hope in the next couple of weeks, we should have that council set up,’’ the Vice President projected.
On what should be done to improve funding for startups, the Vice President noted that some enterprises were already doing well there, adding that more activities should be developed around the public sector to support entities in the sub-sector.
While commending innovators for their contributions to the nation’s development and assuring them of continued government support, Osinbajo said that with the social investment policy of the administration and collaboration with other stakeholders, more people could be brought into innovation.
On increasing agro production and reducing post harvest losses, the Vice President stressed that a lot needed to be done with other partners in order to minimize post-harvest losses of farmers.
He confirmed that government was also working with mango and yam producers in Benue for the preservation of the commodities.
