L-R: Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Wealth Creation & Employment, AbdulAhmed Mustapha; Former Minister of Information & Communication Technology, Omobola Johnson; Executive Director, Stanford Seed, Jesper B. Sørensen; and CEO, SBTel & Device, Afolabi Abiodun
The Lagos State Government (LASG) has asked Stanford Graduate Business School for help in transforming Lagos (read, “Yaba”) into a technology hub that’ll be on the same level as Silicon Valley.
All this happened in a meeting that happened at the State Secretariat, involving stakeholders in the Nigerian tech ecosystem (from the public and private sectors) and the visiting faculty of Stanford University’s Graduate Business School led by Jesper Sørensen and Jeffrey Prickett.
Talking at the meeting, the Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Wealth Creation and Employment, AbdulAhmed Mustapha, said he was glad that the Stanford Graduate Business School and the Stanford Seed Transformation Network (STN) have expressed their readiness to support the State’s efforts to actualise its objective of establishing a hub for tech entrepreneurs.
According to him, LASG is confident that the business school and its alumni network will boost the enormous potential for technological innovations in Lagos and Nigeria in general.
In response, the Vice President of STN, Afolabi Abiodun, said, “The way to eradicate poverty is by having more successful businesses and innovative startups. We sincerely believe that the state government is fully committed to the realization of this initiative and the STN would support as much as we can. Interestingly, we have a bunch of tech companies in our network. So, we are ready for action as soon as the state government sets the wheels in motion.”
People that were present at the meeting include the former Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Omobola Johnson; Vice Chancellor of Lagos State University, Olanrewaju Adigun Fagbohun; officials from the coordinating Ministry of Wealth Creation and Employment; Lagos State Ministry of Energy; Office of Overseas Affairs and Investment, Lagos state; Lagos state Employment Trust Fund; Ibile Holdings; and representatives from Systemspecs, SB Tel & Device, CcHub, iDeaHub, and Microsoft.
