The UK-Nigeria Tech Hub announces the launch of the Nigeria Innovation Cluster Exchange (NICE). An initiative funded by the UK-Nigeria tech hub, under the UK Government’s Digital Access Programme and implemented by The Nest Innovation Technology Park, NICE is a landmark pilot designed to bridge the structural gaps in Nigeria’s innovation ecosystem.
While Nigeria’s startup ecosystem has expanded rapidly across FinTech, Agri-Tech, Cyber Tech and HealthTech, it remains critically fragmented. Currently, Entrepreneurship Support Organizations (ESOs), research centers, and hubs often operate in silos, leading to a duplication of effort and limited sustainability for the startups they support. NICE responds by organizing these disparate actors into a coordinated, data-driven national network.
“Today, we are moving from celebrating isolated pockets of brilliance to engineering a collective national engine for growth,” said Oluwajoba Oloba, the Co-founder of The Nest Innovation Technology Park. “NICE provides architecture to unify our myriad of ESOs and startups, allowing them to function like a coordinated army of ants. We are not just launching a programme; we are activating the connective tissue Nigeria’s economy has long demanded.”
Developed with insights from the 2025 UK Digital Trade and Innovation Tour, coordinated by the UK-Nigeria Tech Hub in collaboration with the Office for Nigerian Digital Innovation (ONDI), NICE adapts global best practices to the Nigerian context. The initiative aims to tackle the “coordination deficit” in a country where National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data shows over 53% youth underemployment, and fewer than 10% of startups survive beyond their third year.
The pilot programme will strengthen Nigeria’s innovation clusters—defined as geographically and sectorally concentrated networks of ESOs, startups, manufacturing firms, and state agencies through four primary objectives:
1. Cluster Mapping & Activation: Identifying and formalizing innovation clusters across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones to create a validated intelligence resource for investors and policymakers.
2. Knowledge Mobility: A bilateral exchange enabling structured knowledge transfer through short-term expert-residencies between Nigerian clusters and United Kingdom innovation counterparts.
3. Collaborative Prototyping: Facilitating joint “innovation sprints” where Nigerian clusters and UK experts co-create market-ready solutions for local challenges.
4. Sustainability & Ownership: Implementing a local stewardship model to ensure clusters remain self-governing and resilient long after the pilot phase.
5. Economic Impact: NICE targets sectors vital to national diversification, including Agri-Tech for food security, Cyber Tech, and Health Tech. By facilitating cross-cluster learning and expert mobility, the programme ensures that the support provided by incubators and accelerators is no longer limited by geography but powered by a national exchange.
The NICE pilot phase begins on July 6th, 2026. ESOs, research institutions, and industry stakeholders are invited to participate.
For more information… Visit: https://nice-rust.vercel.app/
ABOUT THE PARTNERS
The UK-Nigeria Tech Hub: The UK-Nigeria Tech Hub, part of the UK Government’s Digital Access Programme, delivers the FCDO’s Digital Development Strategy by supporting inclusive, responsible, and sustainable digital transformation in Nigeria’s tech and digital innovation sectors
The Nest Innovation Technology Park – The Nest is a leading African innovation hub and ESO. It provides the incubation, research, and policy frameworks necessary to help founders, researchers, and technical talent build sustainable, high-impact innovation systems.
