Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State on Sunday said his administration would build innovation and technology centres across the state to address the problem of youth’s unemployment.
Sanwo-Olu, who spoke through his Deputy, Dr Obafemi Hamzat, made the disclosure at a program organised by the Eko Innovation Centre in Lagos, stating that his administration recognised the place of technology as the key driver to fast-growing economies.
According to him, “Technology is the way to go. It is the way of the future and our administration is committed to leveraging on technology in delivering the megacity dream.
“As a government, we will build innovation and technology centres where we can bring in private capital and investors, get ideas from young people on technology and be able to start creating employment for our youths.
“We also believe that to achieve the THEME concept that has to do with the environment, education, transportation and health, innovations and technology is key.
“People from those centres would come and give us innovative ideas to solve our transport problem; ideas with which they think locally.”
In his address, Mr Victor Afolabi, the Founder, Eko Innovation Centre, said the objective of the initiative was to transform the technology and innovation landscape in Nigeria and by extension, Africa.
Afolabi said that lack of capital was limiting the capabilities of entrepreneurs to develop innovation technologies in order to solve the problems in the country.
He urged the state government to support and create the enabling environment for start-ups to thrive.
Also, Mr Andrew Nevin, Co-founder, African Leadership Institute, said that creating smart economies with technology-driven innovative solutions would lead to creation of new jobs that previously never existed.