Pantami Urges Startups to Explore Government Policies for Ecosystem Consolidation

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ibrahim Pantami has challenged startups and innovators in the Nigeria ecosystem to take advantage of existing policies of government to further consolidate and enhance the success of the ecosystem.

Pantami gave the charge when he met with indigenous innovators in Lagos, recently to explore avenues of developing the Ecosystem to further drive the digital economy agenda.

At the interactive session organised by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), with the theme: Fostering an Enabling Environment for Start-up Growth, Pantami disclosed that the objective of the session was to understand first hand, what the ecosystem requires from the government in order to thrive.

“The importance of a vibrant, functional innovation ecosystem cannot be underscored and that is why we have taken deliberate steps to organise this interactive session specifically, to address certain pertinent issues.

Firstly, how to consolidate our ecosystem, secondly to understand the market and its challenges thirdly, to map our market and set targets, to strengthen our networking strategies and more importantly, collaborating and partnering with government. This is key to the success of our ecosystem because government has a major role to play in providing an enabling environment,” Pantami said.

The minister emphasised that the federal government remained open and willing to suggestions on what it could do to further ensure the success of the ecosystem.

He said, “If there are challenges in implementing any of the policies we have put in place for the sector to thrive, please let us know”.

He cited the National Startup Bill, the National Council for Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the National Policy for the Development of Indigenous Content in the Telecommunications Sector among others, as examples of government’s commitment to enact and implement policies that enable the ecosystem.

Pantami further said incentives like grants, tax, including fiscal incentives, startup labelling, seed funding for startups, tax holidays, have been provided for, in the plan to offer the necessary support by government.

He noted that Nigeria as the largest digital economy in Africa which is in the process of deploying fifth generation networks (5G), with the immense human potential and the necessary collaborations and partnerships between government and the ecosystem, the country would in no time take its pride of place as the continent’s technology giant.

Pantami mentioned that the presidency was ready to make sure the bill meets excellent execution. He commended the work of the startup ecosystem for pushing Nigeria to become the largest digital economy in Africa, adding that it’s time to work closely together to achieve greater hallmark.

Speaking on NITDA’s effort in addressing skills set in the country, the Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Inuwa Kashifu Abdullahi, said: “As honourable minister of Communications and Digital Economy normally used to say ‘we make skills not certificate’ because we sponsor people abroad for M.SC and PH.D programmes, and most of them refused to come back to the country, those that come back will be a liability to the country looking for jobs.

“Instead of that, we decided to come up with scheme called Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Support scheme, based on the direction of the minister. It is a scheme design to identify talented startups of youths with ideas, place them in developed hubs for training and incubation and at the end we have what we called startups Vouchers we give them that will help them as seed funding to develop their products and services.”