The Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu has revealed that his administration would build innovation and technology centres across the state to combat the problem of youth unemployment.
The Governor represented by his Deputy, Dr Obafemi Hamzat on Sunday made this disclosure at a forum organized by the Eko Innovation Centre in Lagos.
He acknowledged the place of technology as an important driver to fast-growing economies.
He said, “Technology is the way to go. It is the way of the future and our administration is committed to leveraging on technology in delivering the megacity dream.
“As a government, we will build innovation and technology centres where we can bring in private capital and investors, get ideas from young people on technology and be able to start creating employment for our youths. “We also believe that to achieve the THEME concept that has to do with the environment, education, transportation and health, innovations and technology is key.
“People from those centres would come and give us innovative ideas to solve our transport problem; ideas with which they think locally.”
The Founder of the Eko Innovation Centre, Mr Victor Afolabi while speaking said the aim of the initiative was to transform the technology and innovation landscape in Nigeria and by extension, Africa.
Afolabi stated that the scarcity of capital was restricting the capabilities of entrepreneurs to develop innovative technologies in order to solve the problems in the country.
He encouraged the state government to support and create the enabling environment for start-ups to thrive.
In his words, “We saw in the Lagos manifesto an agenda to make the state a 21st-century economy. “The only way to create a 21st-century economy is to make sure you are creating the enabling environment for businesses and solution to problems that are driven by innovation and technology.”
Also, Mr Andrew Nevin, Co-founder, African Leadership Institute, said that creating smart economies with technology-driven innovative solutions would lead to the creation of new jobs that previously never existed.
