At the Art of Technology (AOT) Lagos 4.0 conference themed: Talent Acceleration and A Smarter Lagos, held at the Landmark Event Centre, Victoria Island, on December 9 -10, 2022, Dr Obafemi Hamzat, the Deputy Governor, harped on the values that AOT has added through technology to the present administration. In his keynote address, he emphasized that Lagos State is now the number one technology startup ecosystem in Africa in terms of funds deployed.
“…Between
2019 and 2021, over a 120% increase in venture capital inflow into Lagos was
realised resulting in $1.5 billion in VC funding in 2021 alone. We have records
of over 2000 Startups creating and contributing value across Fintech, Agritech,
Construction, health and others. All of these point to an open and enabling
environment for growth and proliferation of entrepreneurial activity within the
technology system”
He
maintained that the AOT gathering ignited the Lagos State Science Research and
Innovation Council (LASRIC), which consists of private and public sector
professionals who fund the ecosystem. The deputy governor said that the body
has funded over 60 startups for the past two years.
In deepening Internet penetration, the state
has concluded over 2,900km of optic deployments across the state thereby
connecting 100 schools. They have also deployed 600 Smart Intelligent Video
Surveillance Camera.
Mr Hakeem Fahm, Honourable Commissioner of Science
andTechnology, Lagos State, in his opening remarks stated that multi-participated,
important public and private stakeholders have gathered to help Lagos State to explore
policies/strategies to help the state to perform smarter, digital, efficient and competitive
over time.
He said that
the gathering, both present and online, has over 30,000 participants, a far cry
of 2000 participants during the first outing in 2019. “We are in my opinion at
the appropriate time and place to be attending this conference. Let’s work
together to speed up the sharing of ideas and adoption of effective
techniques”.
“We all
recognize the value of innovation, science and technology in our daily lives
and how they are changing the world and how participation is equally crucial”.
“ Our experience
with AOT has persuaded us that the only way we can accelerate progress and
decrease inequality is through multi-stakeholder and multilateral co-operation
by fastening technology as this is collaborative space for decision makers,
business owners, entrepreneurs, financiers, diplomats and members of the civil
societies”.
“ It is
crucial to harness the youth’s energy in the appropriate ways if our state is
to experience total development throughout all facets of our society, otherwise
no one will be able to stop that country from suffering from sharp decline.
Happy youths are undoubtedly the face of our state and nation in the future, they
are full of wonderful ideas and boundless energy, so if given the correct
platform, they will sure shine like the stars”. The commissioner revealed thst
as talent acceleration and smarter Lagos is the state’s focus therefore “we are
creating a 10-year roadmap to widening the talent acceleration pipeline to
achieve talent sustainability that will deliver the smater Lagos”.
Mr
Olatunbosun Alake, host, AOT and Special Adviser on Innovation and Technology,
Lagos State on recounting the journey so
far said that Lagos State has diversity of talents and can be counted among the
top technology ecosystems on the African Continent . He explained that AOT was
devised to showcase Lagos and this has birthed one of the biggest technology
exchange platforms in Nigeria. The first AOT event brought the first Lagos
State Innovative and Technology Masterplan, which had a number of papers that
we said if we can interview a certain initiatives in these papers that the
ecosystem will be better for it. Today we are addressing one of the strategic
papers of that first AOT event masterplan.
“Lagos State
is one of the key economic driver for Nigeria…about 77 new residents from all
over Nigeria migrate to Lagos every single day. How do you manage such an
enormous population with such a static landmass? We need to acquire technology,
so over the years between 2019 and 2021 Lagos State has emerged as number
startup investment in Africa in terms of volumes of bills that have been paid”.
“There are
many things we have been doing to encourage and to make sure the ecosystem is
right for investors; and between 20,000
and 50,000 people are employed by different startups across the innovation
subsector”.
The two-day
programme has keynote sessions where Mr Tarek Sumch, Managing Director, BOTasl
Limited talked about the Tech Talent Development in Africa: the Bangladesh
Model and Abubakar Suleiman, Executive Officer,
Sterling Bank, enunciated on Building Resilient Talent for Digital
Transformation. There were also plenary and breakout discussions on topics like
Workforce Talent Strategy: Building the Public Workforce of the Future; The
Future of Work: Tech, Talent & Business Transformation among other topics
geared towards a smarter Lagos having a Talent Acceleration Strategy.
One of the
high points of the event was the Awards for Innovation and Ideas competition
organized by LASRIC where some students from public secondary schools won
different prizes and was recognized by the state government.
The Art of
Technology (AOT), Lagos is an annual tech conference curated by Mr Victor
Gbenga Afolabi, Founder, Eko Innovation
Centre, one of the leading tech hubs in Nigeria in collaboration with the Lagos State
Government .
The
conference brings together technology industry stakeholders, policymakers,
enthusiasts, ecosystem players, investors, business founders and executives,
venture capital firms, startups, and technology talents to create policies that
will drive the development of a smarter Lagos .Creating a 10-year roadmap to
widening the talent acceleration pipeline to achieve talent sustainability that
will deliver the Smarter Lagos.
Till date
AOT has had over 30,000 participants, 171 speakers , 16 keynotes and 10 million
engagements from 111 countries worldwide.
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