Nigeria to Showcase 10 Startups at GITEX 2017

The federal government, through the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), will be promoting 10 startups at this year’s GITEX technology expo and conference holding in Dubai from October 8-12. The country’s tech-ambassadors were carefully selected after a highly competitive process anchored by the Office for ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIIE), which is an arm of NITDA.

All 10 startups will join their peers from over 60 countries at the second edition of the GITEX Startups Global Movement, which was launched last year.

GITEX is the premier annual technology event in the Middle East, Asia and Africa hosting over 185, 000 visitors from more than 140 countries. This year’s edition holds at the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) with the theme: ‘ReImagining Realities -Discover, Transform,Innovate.’

Nigeria is promoting three thematic activities for its participation this year on Information Technology (IT) investment and exposure of indigenous. The activities are the Nigerian Pavilion, the Startup Innovation Hub, and the Africa Investment Forum (AIF) being put together jointly by the Nigerian government through the NITDA and the UAE government through the DWTC, organisers of GITEX.

While the AIF is designed to attract to investments, the AIF will highlight Nigeria’s investment increasing portfolio for ICT investment as the continent’s largest economy and market for ICT. The AIF will be drawing participation from the technology business communities in Asia, Europe, the Americas and the rest of Africa.

NITDA’s Director General, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami said agency remained committed to its mandate to build a technology ecosystem that thrives on indigenous manpower connected to the global IT community. Pantami said young people are a critical focus of NITDA’s agenda to develop the IT sector.

“Our young people are highly talented. With more training, exposure, funding and mentorship, a thriving IT industry can be encouraged to grow within international standards so that we can not only meet our local needs but also become an IT exporting nation,” Pantami said.

The startups on Nigeria’s Gitex list this year include: Cloudoria, a web based operating system, helping to improve access to computing in developing countries like Nigeria; SIX –IoT, which is an electronic device using Raspberry Pi, Microcontrollers, Sensors and some electronics components.

The SIX –IoT device provides Internet of Things (IoT) based solutions to road safety problems; Nicademia, an online distribution platform for Africa based inspired cartoons; Beat Drone, a drone service provider in the agricultural sector, the solution enable farmers eliminate death of crops before harvest periods using the drones to execute 3D mapping of the farmland to enable proper planning.

Others are Dropque, which is a single-to-use one-way video interviewing tool that enables companies to assess candidates fit early on in their talent acquisition/recruitment process; MTK e-Learning is a rich learning, and teaching platform for running a versatile online training and collaboration program for students, employees, partners or customers in time and tracking of training results; Wardmonitor, which seeks to bridge the gap between parent and child while the child is in school. The solution allows children to be monitored by parents not just by schools or teachers alone.