Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, Kashifu Abdullahi, has urged Nigerian start-ups to come up with more innovative ideas to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy.
Abdullahi made the call while addressing participants via video conference during an event tagged ‘Virtual Demo Day: COVID-19 Innovation Challenge’, organised by Venture Platform Hub.
The NITDA boss stressed that coronavirus pandemic would affect technological and economic activities in the world. According to him, industries around the globe will be disrupted with many innovations.
Noting that COVID-19 had already made a significant impact on digital technology, Abdullahi said there was a need for Nigerian start-ups to be on the alert for more changes.
He said, “Things are not going to be the same after the pandemic.
“The world economic order is going to change; a lot of industries are going to be disrupted.
“Start-ups should be ready to embrace the inevitable change.”
Advising young ICT entrepreneurs on ways to grow their start-ups, Abdullahi said, “As of January this year, the global market valuation of unicorns was more than $2tn.
“Unicorns mean privately-owned companies worth one billion US dollars or more.“Once a company has gone public or has been acquired, it is no longer termed as a unicorn.
“I believe you can grow your start-ups to become a unicorn within a short period by following the playbook successful start-ups had followed.
“It involves three simple rules. Firstly, they begin with a plan to disrupt an existing industry. Secondly, they inject capital to grow as rapidly as possible and thirdly, they tolerate high risk in a rush to conquer and dominate the market segment.
“As Africans, our young and digitally native population is a competitive advantage.
“In addition, our market is still untapped. There are 615 unicorns in the world; 43 per cent is in the US; 33 per cent are in China while only three are in Africa – two in South Africa and one in Nigeria.”
Abdullahi explained that the health and pharmaceuticals sector occupied the seventh position in the global unicorn market valuation.
He observed that Nigerian entrepreneurs were coming up with innovative ideas, a development which he said would attract bigger investors and venture capitalists.
This news was Culled from Punch. Click here to view more.
