In this candid conversation, Funmilayo Caulcrick-Oluwapelumi, Senior Programmes Officer at AfriLabs, discusses the vision behind InnovateNaija, a nationwide initiative funded by NASENI and implemented by AfriLabs to identify, support and amplify grassroots innovators across Nigeria. She shares how the programme is uncovering solutions from underserved communities, the role of state governments in expanding their reach, the process of selecting and evaluating innovators, and the kinds of funding, mentorship and ecosystem support available to help promising ideas scale into impactful ventures.
Enjoy the conversation!
Hello Funmilayo. Thank you for being here with us. How are you feeling today?
I’m feeling innovative and genuinely energised. There’s something about this moment in Nigeria’s innovation story that makes it hard not to be.
Could you tell us a bit about how your work at AfriLabs intertwines with a campaign like InnovateNaija?
As a Senior Programmes Officer at AfriLabs, I manage programmes focused on strengthening innovation ecosystems across Africa. AfriLabs works across 53 African countries to support tech hubs, entrepreneurs, innovators, startups, and innovation ecosystems through capacity building, partnerships, policy engagement, and access to opportunities. My work sits at the intersection of capacity building, grant portfolio management, and connecting African entrepreneurs to the structures they need to grow.
InnovateNaija is a natural extension of that work. Too often, innovation conversations are concentrated around major cities in Nigeria and established startup ecosystems. However, some of the most impactful solutions are being developed in communities that rarely receive national attention. Through InnovateNaija, AfriLabs is working with The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), who are the funder of the initiative, to identify, amplify, fund and support these innovators. NASENI brings its mandate of driving indigenous technology development, engineering excellence, local manufacturing, and industrialisation in Nigeria, and AfriLabs brings its expertise in innovation ecosystem development, startup support and pan-African networks,
InnovateNaija is an ambitious and timely initiative. From your perspective, what inspired the campaign?
InnovateNaija was inspired by a simple but urgent realisation across Nigeria, innovation is not lacking, but visibility, structure, funding and support often are. Every day, in markets, classrooms, farms, and informal workshops, Nigerians are solving real problems in ingenious ways. Yet many of these solutions remain unseen, unsupported, and unscaled.
NASENI, as the funding institution behind this initiative, made a deliberate decision to go beyond infrastructure investment and actively seek out the human capital driving Nigerian innovation. That decision created the conditions for InnovateNaija. AfriLabs was brought in as the implementing partner precisely because of our experience designing inclusive, ecosystem-driven programmes across Africa. One story that stayed with us during the early thinking stages was that of a young innovator in Kano who built a low-cost solar-powered irrigation system using recycled materials. He wasn’t operating from a startup hub, didn’t have venture backing, and had never pitched on a stage, but his solution would improve yields for smallholder farmers in his community. That kind of brilliance should not remain local.
One of the campaign’s major promises is inclusivity—reaching innovators across all 36 states and the FCT. How is the programme intentionally designed to identify and engage grassroots innovators, particularly those in underserved or underrepresented communities?
Beyond the social and traditional media which we have deployed across national media organisations, one of the most deliberate and exciting elements of our inclusivity strategy is the introduction of catalytic state grants, a mechanism designed to bring state governments into active partnership with the programme. The idea is straightforward: we engage state governors directly, inviting them to co-invest in their states’ innovators by providing matching or supplementary grants that amplify the support their citizens can receive through InnovateNaija. This transforms the programme from a federal-level initiative into something with genuine subnational ownership and investment. The states, through this, would also be responsible for cascading the information down to the grassroots within their states.
We are genuinely encouraged by the governors of Abia, Kaduna, Plateau, and Enugu, who have already responded to this call. Their engagement sends a strong signal to innovators in those states that their leadership sees them, believes in them, and is willing to put resources behind that belief. It also creates healthy momentum. When other states see peers stepping forward, it builds a compelling case for participation. We encourage other governors, too, to show their support to them by providing catalytic funds.
Can you walk us through how innovative ideas or solutions will be identified and evaluated during the campaign? Are there particular sectors, communities or problem areas the programme is especially eager to spotlight?
The InnovateNaija campaign is structured as a four-stage process designed to identify, validate, and scale grassroots innovation across Nigeria.
In the first stage, an open call was published across multiple media channels, attracting over 2,000 applications nationwide. From this pool, 133 innovations were selected across 36 states and the FCT, with selection based on relevance, impact, scalability and ingenuity. In the second stage, the 133 finalists engaged the public through voting on the InnovateNaija platform. This resulted in the emergence of 36 state champions, each representing their state. These innovators are set to receive a ₦2.5 million grant from NASENI, alongside catalytic grants from participating state governments, reinforcing both national support and local ownership. The programme is currently in its third stage, where the 36 finalists are once again canvassing for votes through a combination of web and social media engagement, with the top 15 innovators advancing to the final round.
The fourth and final stage will feature a live pitch session at the NASENI Invention Festival, where the top 15 innovators will present their solutions to key stakeholders. Across all regions, the campaign has surfaced a diverse pipeline of solutions addressing real, everyday challenges. Notably, innovations span critical sectors such as: Energy & Power Systems, Agriculture & Food Systems, Climate, Waste & Circular Economy, Digital/AI–enabled Platforms, Healthcare & Medical Devices, Manufacturing and Mobility
These aren’t hypothetical sectors; they reflect the actual profile of solutions we are seeing among our finalists, and they represent where Nigeria’s most urgent needs and most creative responses converge. They also align closely with NASENI’s strategic priorities around science, engineering, and indigenous technology development.
A major challenge for many innovators is moving from idea to scale. Once promising grassroots solutions are identified, what kind of support can participants expect?
Participants can expect:
- Mentorship and advisory support from experienced ecosystem players • Visibility, both nationally and internationally, through platforms and partnerships
- Access to funding opportunities and credits, such as cloud support and financial tools.
- Market linkage opportunities with corporates, government, and development partners.
The goal is to surround innovators with the right ecosystem of support so they can grow sustainably and scale their solutions effectively. To this end, key partners have already committed to supporting the programme through a combination of funding, startup credits, and capacity-building initiatives, including training and technical support.
Thank you for your time, Funmilayo
Thank you for having me.
The post Funmilayo Caulcrick-Oluwapelumi on How InnovateNaija Is Spotlighting Innovators Across Nigeria appeared first on BellaNaija – Showcasing Africa to the world. Read today!.
In this candid conversation, Funmilayo Caulcrick-Oluwapelumi, Senior Programmes Officer at AfriLabs, discusses the vision behind InnovateNaija, a nationwide initiative funded by NASENI and implemented by AfriLabs to identify, support and amplify grassroots innovators across Nigeria. She shares how the programme is uncovering solutions from underserved communities, the role of state governments in expanding their reach,
The post Funmilayo Caulcrick-Oluwapelumi on How InnovateNaija Is Spotlighting Innovators Across Nigeria appeared first on BellaNaija – Showcasing Africa to the world. Read today!. Read More
