The Bank of Industry (BOI) today announces the official commissioning of the Bayelsa Tech Hub and BOI-UAT Incubation Center respectively by the Executive Governor of Bayelsa State, His Excellency, Hon. Seriake Dickson. These projects are corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives sponsored by the Bayelsa State Government and BOI to promote skills development, youth entrepreneurship and job creation in new technology and innovations.
As the foremost development finance institution in Nigeria, the Bank of Industry has the mission to transform Nigeria’s industrial sector by providing financial and business support services to enable new businesses emerge and existing enterprises to thrive.
Today’s commissioning of the Tech Hub and BOI-UAT incubation centre is the manifestation of a deliberate programme that the Bank of Industry is implementing towards building a dynamic and vibrant startup ecosystem in Nigeria, and is driven by the realization that tech startups are becoming major economic value creators in the 21st century and this trend will accelerate especially as artificial intelligence, robotics, big data, etc., become embedded in our daily lives. It is also motivated by the desire to support quality projects with high developmental impact such as job creation and poverty alleviation to enhance the socio-economic standard of especially, young Nigerians.
The Managing Director/CEO, Bank of Industry, Mr. Kayode Pitan said the Bank was sponsoring the hub in recognition of the ingenuity and creativity of young people in Nigeria, and the need to channel these to more productive and impactful ends, rather than social vices like Internet fraud. According to him, “the overall objective is to ensure that our corporate social responsibility investments are such as will generate better benefits for the country; and initiatives like this gives young people an opportunity to add their own quota to the economic development of Lagos State, and Nigeria as a whole”.
“We believe that at a centre like this, talent can be discovered and harnessed, and also it will help to grow the tech ecosystem in the country, get more young people involved in it, make it more attractive to investments, etc. and this will augur well for Nigeria, in general”.
To ensure the initiative is sustainable, BOI has partnered with Vatebra, a technology firm to manage the day-to-day operations at the Hub, which has facilities including high-speed internet access, shared and private offices spaces, well equipped robotics training lab, among others. Vatebra is a leading software solutions company in Africa with offices in Nigeria (Lagos & Abuja), Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Sierra-Leone. Vatebra Limited is a 3-time winner of the “Technology Company of the Year” Award by the Nigerian Technology Awards.
The Bayelsa state government and Bank of Industry will roll out series of programmes to build and strengthen the capacities of entrepreneurs to ideate, incubate and launch successful businesses. These programmes will be complemented with funding opportunities through schemes from BOI and other financing institutions.
The belief is that the Hubs will be a platform to productively engage youths in Bayelsa and beyond, and also create an ecosystem that will in the near future add to Nigeria’s economic growth.
For more information, please contact Bank of Industry Corporate Communications on ccd@boi.ng