Technology
Nigeria Urgently Needs National Technology Agenda—Verraki
Leading business and technology solutions firm, Verraki Partners, has called on the Nigerian government, working in collaboration with the private sector, to urgently develop and begin to execute a national technology agenda, that will be distinctly Nigerian and will improve our competitiveness in the global economy.
Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the recently concluded 25th Nigeria Economic Summit, Senior Manager for Technology Application Services at Verraki, Olatunde Olajide who facilitated the summit’s Industry Breakfast Meeting on Information and Communications Technology, advocated the need for Nigeria to overturn its perceived unwelcome stereotype and emulate countries like Israel, China, Singapore and South Korea that have all articulated and implemented a national agenda which has in turn helped them to create specific niches, improve their reputation while fostering economic growth.
In his submission, though Nigeria boasts of Africa’s largest young population, bursting with entrepreneurial energy, tremendous resolve, resilience and creativity, the nation is yet to articulate a holistic agenda as a counternarrative to the damaging reports of fraud, corruption and unemployment.
He asserts that this biased perspective has a negative impact on the country’s perception, creating a drawback to our ability to attract new investment and ultimately our future economic potential.
In pressing for a national ICT agenda, Olajide quoted “Following its release of an Artificial Intelligence Development Plan, China outlined AI as a national priority, expressed its commitment to building a domestic AI industry worth US$150 billion and leading AI globally by 2030.
“China has already introduced AI pilot programmes in hundreds of schools and training teachers to implement the new curricula throughout the country. Nigeria must define what its strategic ICT agenda is, in the global economy and work towards this”.
He continued “There is a lot Nigeria can do in a global economy; Nigeria is home to the leading hubs for entrepreneurship on the continent thanks to several strengths, including our resilient entrepreneurs, a growing number of engaging international investors, a huge population with increasing access to technology, a growing number of startup support organizations active in the ecosystem, over 84 million hectares of arable land with less than half cultivated for agriculture production, our creative industries especially music and Nollywood, a booming billion dollar film industry. We must harness these strengths to determine how best we can play in the global economy”.
Olajide also highlighted the importance of local content and skills in the country’s IT agenda and encouraged local enterprises and governments to patronize companies with Research & Development, Product Development and Manufacturing operations in Nigeria to help in developing natonal technology competence.
“China, South Korea, Japan’s competencies were not built in a day. I remember people scorned Asian (Japan, South Korea and China) cars some decades ago. The path to development is an iterative process and we must encourage our local players so they can improve.
“Given the low national literacy level of 66%, we need to aggressively scale digital literacy training for teachers, students, and others while also establishing systems and structures for protection of contents and IP rights of our inventors and entrepreneurs”, he concluded.
The 25th edition of the Nigerian Economic Summit, a public-private dialogue held recently in Abuja and was supported by Verraki Partners.
Since its inception, NESG has promoted its activities around six fundamental principles of the economy. It includes a commitment to a Free Market Economy, encouragement of Private Sector Investments, Creation of an Enabling Environment, Good Governance in the National Interest, Rule-Based Economy and the Establishment of Economic Foundation for Democracy.
Verraki is focused on implementing technology and business solutions designed inherently for Africa and fit for purpose, while curating business ventures that would contribute to unlocking new sources of growth across the continent.
Led by foremost corporate professionals as well as former Accenture leadership in Nigeria, Verraki will apply its global expertise and local insights to partner with enterprises and governments to accelerate the development and transformation of Africa by providing business solutions uniquely tailored for Africa.
By Dipo Olowookere
The Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer for MTN Nigeria, Mr Babalola Oyeleye, has disclosed that the telecommunications company intends to expand its infrastructure to give its customers quality service.
The demand for connectivity in Nigeria is growing, and with a new forecast predicting the Internet of Things (IoT) market to reach $38.7 billion by 2030, stakeholders, especially operators, are already positioning themselves to dominate the space
Government and private sector investments in digital transformation have created an ecosystem that includes system integrators and security specialists. Industries such as utilities and agriculture are leading the charge, adopting IoT to solve localised problems like power theft and low crop yields.
Currently, 4G coverage has reached approximately 80 per cent of Nigeria’s population, with 5G services already in major cities like Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Kano. This connectivity backbone is essential for the low-latency communication required by millions of connected devices.
“Reaching the $38.7 billion mark isn’t just about the numbers; it’s about the millions of data points helping Nigerian SMEs and large corporations make smarter decisions every day. Our goal is to ensure the connectivity is there to meet this soaring demand,” Mr Oyeleye noted.
As the ecosystem matures, the focus is shifting toward all-in-one solutions that simplify the user experience. With ongoing investments in NB-IoT (Narrowband IoT) and other low-power connectivity options, the next five years are set to see an explosion in smart city and smart home applications across the country.
By Adedapo Adesanya
South African-founded Refiant AI has raised $5 million to slash the energy footprint of artificial intelligence (AI) in a seed round led by VoLo Earth Ventures, a top climate technology fund.
The startup uses nature-inspired algorithms to radically compress AI models, slashing the hardware and energy required to run them. The new fund will be used to scale Refiant’s team – which already includes a former Google Cloud architect, a Cambridge PhD researcher, and an engineer with NASA experience – to build out a platform and to accelerate enterprise partnerships.
According to a statement shared with Business Post, the company is in active conversations with several multinational technology firms exploring how Refiant’s approach could reduce their AI compute costs while maintaining data and energy sovereignty.
“AI’s growing energy footprint is one of the most urgent and underappreciated challenges in the climate space,” said Mr Sid Gutta, the company’s co-founder. “The industry’s default answer is to build more data centres and consume more power. Ours is to make the AI itself dramatically more efficient.”
The company said it has already successfully demonstrated it can compress a 120 billion parameter AI model to run on a standard laptop, reducing energy requirements by over 80 per cent while preserving near-identical quality. It achieved this to run on a MacBook Pro with just 12GB of RAM. The same model would normally require hardware with at least 80GB of memory. The model retained 95-99 per cent of its fidelity, ran alongside a second AI model on the same machine, and the entire process took four hours with no cloud computing required.
For Refiant, its approach will help businesses reduce their carbon footprint and adopt AI to stay competitive. The energy required to process a single AI prompt on standard infrastructure could power roughly 100 equivalent prompts using Refiant’s approach.
The current breakthrough results were attained at the end of last year, and since then, the team have been gearing up to demonstrate successfully exceeding these results with further compression, longer context windows and model traceability.
“The AI industry is spending hundreds of billions scaling infrastructure when the real breakthrough is the ability to do more with radically less,” said Mr Viroshan Naicker, co-Founder and a mathematician with published research in networks and quantum systems. “Nature doesn’t build by brute force. Evolution optimises. We’ve applied that principle to AI – and the results speak for themselves.”
“AI’s biggest constraint isn’t demand – it’s energy,” added Mr Joseph Goodman, Managing Partner, VoLo Earth. “What’s been missing is a fundamentally more efficient way to compute. Refiant’s architecture replaces brute-force scaling with a far more efficient, nature-inspired approach that lowers energy use while increasing capability. That’s the kind of breakthrough needed to make AI sustainable on a global scale.”
By Adedapo Adesanya
Google and UpSkill Universe, Sub-Saharan Africa’s leading AI and business skills training partner, have announced a major redesign of the Google Hustle Academy programme. For the first time, the free training initiative is open to everyone, not just business owners.
The new curriculum is focused on equipping individuals and entrepreneurs with practical AI skills and comes at a time when small businesses have become the engine of Africa’s economy, creating over 80 per cent of jobs on the continent. To help them grow, the Hustle Academy was launched in 2022, providing bootcamp-style training on business strategy, digital skills, AI, and leadership. The program has since trained over 18,000 SMEs, with many reporting increased revenue and job creation.
Now, as AI reshapes the job market, the program is evolving. The 2026 edition is built for anyone in Sub-Saharan Africa, including employees, students, and job seekers, who want to use AI to advance their careers. To meet the needs of a diverse audience, the new format includes short, 60-minute webinars and more immersive, high-impact bootcamps. These sessions are laser-focused on putting AI to work immediately in areas like digital commerce, marketing, and growth strategy.
Speaking about the academy, Mr Gori Yahaya, Founder & CEO of UpSkill Universe, said, “The 2026 Hustle Academy is designed to close the AI Skills gap with hands-on training that is short, focused, and immediately useful. AI is reshaping how businesses win and how careers are built, right across this continent. We’re excited to renew our partnership, now in its fifth year with Google, combining their global AI leadership with our deep regional AI expertise. The next wave of AI leaders will come from this continent. We are making sure they are ready.”
The Hustle Academy initiative has strengthened digital competitiveness across emerging African economies by enabling SMEs to move beyond AI awareness to practical implementation, positioning them for sustained growth in an increasingly AI-driven business environment.
“We believe that the future of Africa’s digital economy lies in the hands of individuals and entrepreneurs alike. Our new strategy focuses on scaling reach by training individuals in the latest AI-centred tools and techniques,” said a Google representative.
Applications for the 2026 cohort are now open. Interested participants can apply at: https://rsvp.withgoogle.com/events/hustle-academy
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