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.”
