Emerging Media, the organizer of the annual Nigeria Innovation Summit, has announced speakers for this year’s event scheduled to take place in Abuja in September.
Announcing the speakers of the summit with the theme: ‘Building a Culture of Innovation in Nigeria for Sustainable Economic Growth’, the Chief Executive Officer of Emerging Media, Mr Kenneth Omeruo, said” We are excited to announce our first line up of speakers for this year’s summit in Abuja, these distinguished speakers are drawn from local and international organisations who are fostering economic development and playing key role in the global innovation ecosystem around the world and in Nigeria.
“The quality of speakers we have for this year simple defines how important it is for Nigeria to step up her game in building a culture of innovation,” he added.
He also explained that following the call for speakers made earlier in the year, the organizers received several interests mainly from organizations and institutions in many parts of the world to be part of the Nigeria Innovation Summit.
Speakers
The line-up of speakers announced for the summit include; Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami DG/CEO,National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA);Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, EVC, Nigeria Communications Commission; Samuel Bwalya, Country Director, UNDP Nigeria; Jean Bakole,Regional Director,(UNIDO) Nigeria;Bobby Moroe, Acting South African High Commissioner to Nigeria; Dr. Audrey Verhaeghe Chairman, SA Innovation Summit; Richard Ough, Economic Development Team Leader & Senior Economic Adviser, DFID Nigeria; Antoinia Norman, CEO, Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship, South Africa; Stella Bida, Founder, Senior Managing Partner at Innovation. Strategy. Results. -Belgium; Kola Aina CEO/Founder, Ventures Platform; Rubin Rose International Account Manager, World Telecom Labs; Bankole Oloruntoba, Founder, NiNe.
Omeruo also mentioned that Nigeria Innovation Summit is partnering with the South Africa Innovation summit to promote innovation, economic and trade opportunities between the two countries who are some of the biggest economies in Africa.
Dr. Audrey Verhaeghe Chairman, SA Innovation Summit said” we are excited to partner with the Nigeria Innovation Summit, we want to make use of this opportunity to promote cross-border innovation between Nigeria and South Africa, this can be achieved this by nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit and strengthening collaboration between Nigeria and South Africa, to benefit entrepreneurs in our countries respectively. We believe that this cooperation will open up opportunities for cross border trade, sharing of skills and knowledge and ultimately benefit both countries immensely”
The Director of Programs for the Nigeria Innovation Summit, Mr Tony Ajah explained that businesses, organizations, institutions are already indicating their interest to participate in both the Nigeria Innovation Summit and also to leverage the South Africa Innovation Summit to promote their products and services. And therefore encouraged a lot more to participate.
This year Emerging Platforms Abuja,the owners of Ventures Park are the Summit partners and host of Day 1 of the Nigeria Innovation Summit where Collaborations to drive innovation through the Nigeria Start-up Ecosystem will be discussed.
The Nigeria Innovation Summit in its 3rd year is an annual event that focuses on the need for the country, businesses, organisations, entrepreneurs in Nigeria to become more innovative and use innovation to drive sustainable development.
This Summit helps Nigeria embrace innovation and move in the direction of digital transformation through the use of Emerging Technologies and Trends, Research, Development, Commercialization, Entrepreneurship and Investments as the key drivers of an innovation ecosystem.