The National Board for Technology Incubation (NBTI) has established the Technical Working Group (TWG) to drive coordination of innovation commercialization  activities in the country.

The Director General,of NBTI,  Dr. Kazeem Kolawole while inaugurating  the TWG yesterday in Abuja saud the  Board has set up the NBTI  Innovation Commercialization and Scaling Technical Working Group (TWG) as a coordination platform to bring together actors supporting innovation commercialization across the country.

The DG however charged the TWG to promote coordinated access to innovation commercialization activities for  promising research outputs and prototypes capable of addressing Nigerians’ needs, noting that if properly harnessed, innovations could transform sectors, create jobs and grow the economy,.

He said that better database management of innovation commercialization data across programmes in the country will enable better understanding of how innovation commercialization is progressing in line with national targets and their overall contribution to economic growth

The Country Lead of the West African Center for Innovation Development (WACID) Omowumi Olabalu Asani called  for greater investment in Nigeria’s innovation sector saying the platform will  strengthen coordination, reduce bottlenecks for innovators; promote  visibility and evidence generation across innovation commercialization stakeholder groups.

It will also support the mapping of innovation commercialization programmes, investments, innovation hubs, parks, university outputs, research institutions, private-sector actors, investors, CSOs and NGOs.

She explained that the platform will bring their activities and data together to enable stakeholders  understand who is doing what, where support is provided, resources mobilized and results achieved.

“The TWG will operate across five pillars: National Coordination, M&E and Innovation Intelligence; Innovation Infrastructure and Commercialization Pipeline; Enterprise, Investment and Market Adoption; Policy, Industrialization and Economic Impact; and Ecosystem Partnerships, Inclusion and Sustainable Scale.

“Over the coming weeks, the TWG will map existing programmes and support structures, establish baselines, identify ongoing activities, harmonize indicators and reporting arrangements, and begin operationalizing the NBTI Innovation Commercialization Observatory”.

The TWG includes representatives from  innovation hubs, CSOs, NGOs and other  stakeholders they will meet quarterly, with technical subgroups established as needed.