Five out of twenty Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) from across Nigeria are set to win N3.5 million each as twenty of them in Lagos today pitched their innovative solution at the 2023 WASH Innovation Fair & Incubation Programme.
The twenty innovators pitched their innovative idea that addresses challenges in Nigeria’s Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH) sector. The programme organised through the partnership of the Financial Centre for Sustainability, Lagos and the Nigeria Climate Innovation Center (NCIC), is sponsored by IHS, one of the largest independent owners, operators and developers of shared communication infrastructure in the world and FMDQ Group Africa’s foremost vertically integrated financial market infrastructure group.
The five SMEs with the best innovations that will be chosen by the judges will be unveiled tomorrow at the grand finale of the event at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Victoria Island.
Apart from getting the N3.5 million each, IHS (Nigeria) Limited and its partners will be supporting them with technical, commercial and business advice to enable them to take their innovative ideas from initiation to market entry.
Giving a welcome address, Cima Sholotan from IHS, argues that growing in a clean and safe environment is every citizen’s right, as having a basic clean environment does not only keep children healthy but also gives them a brighter future.
“Today’s event is aimed to contribute to the drive by the Federal Government of Nigeria to end open defecation by 2025 and to make clean water and sanitation readily available to all Nigerians in line with Goal 6 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals,” she said.
Meanwhile, there will be a Roundtable Session tomorrow where subject matter experts, key industry players, development partners and C-suite executives and local/international financing partners will deliberate on the vexing issues limiting the growth of the sector and key strategies for exploiting the estimated $21 billion opportunities identified last year at the World Toilet Summit by stakeholders