The Federal Government has disclosed that it is working on a bill, the Nigeria Startup Bill (NSB), that will fast-track the ongoing efforts to digitalize the nation’s economy.
The government hinted that the Bill, now being worked on, will provide for a set of rules and incentives that would help create an enabling environment for tech-enabled businesses to thrive.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Digital Transformation, Oswald Guobadia, gave this hint at a Hackathon Challenge organised by Financial Services Innovators (FSI) in collaboration with the Nigerian Association of Computing Students (NACOS), for select students in the six geo-political zones.
He said: “It puts guidelines in place to help facilitate funding through a number of different ways. There are funds available to staffers and small businesses but the bill will help to give a pathway for you to go to access it.
“The bill will serve as a one – stop – shop. It is basically a startup management system where all startups would be registered and from that platform you will be able to access all the information related to the startup as long as you qualify for it”, Guobadia assured.
In her remarks, the Executive Director, Financial Services Innovators (FSI), Aituaz Kola-Oladejo, said the summit would help to raise leaders and create a culture of innovation, among which will help to reduce the level of unemployment in the country.
She clarified: “The summit is for young people who are interested in building a career in technology, and also who are interested in becoming entrepreneurs. This programme is the maiden edition to help them on their path, provide guidance that is required, and also to help them commercialise their solutions and innovations.
“FSI is a platform for social infrastructure that attempts and aids young people who don’t have a voice but have ideas. We are in a mission to discover talents in the Nigerian tech ecosystem, and especially in tertiary institutions because that’s where the idea starts from.
“We want to help them to refine and provide that level of guidance, give them access to a network of mentors, and at the end of the day commercialize it,” Kola-Oladejo added.
The director expressed optimism that once the initiative, which is in line with the Federal Government’s Digital Inclusion agenda , starts fully, the students who mostly live in the suburban communities and understand the challenges they experience daily, will provide solutions to address them.
She expatiated: “The whole idea is to put Nigeria on the global map of technology. I foresee a time when Nigeria will be exporting technology to other parts of the world.
“We want to democratize innovation. Once innovation is democratized the cost of financial services, or the access to this platform will reduce, so that even the common man on the street will be able to access these services at almost a ridiculous rate or even free,” the director assured.
