The Abuja Team was at Nile University to attend the first-ever virtual workshop of the MIT-REAP Program. MIT-REAP Workshop 2, the second of a 4-workshop series that usually holds at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was the first of its kind to bring together teams from across the world on a virtual platform.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program “MIT REAP” Team Abuja is a collaboration of stakeholders from both the government and private sectors (Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, Petroleum Equalisation Fund Management Board, Nile University of Nigeria, National Information Technology Development Agency, Abuja Enterprise Agency, TeasyPay, 9Mobile, Verdant Agritech, First Icon Mutual Capital, and Sigma Pensions).
The MIT REAP workshop 2 hosted by Nile University between 21st to 23rd October was very educative, informative, and progressive. The workshop was attended by other MIT REAP teams from around the world via Zoom, including teams from Denmark, New Taipei City of Taiwan, Fukuoka City of Japan, Ha’il, and Northern Saudi Arabia. With the ever-increasing growth of the FCT population, the city cannot continue to depend on the government as its primary economic base; there is a need to diversify and look towards technology and innovation to enhance its economic prospects and further address Innovation Driven Entrepreneurship acceleration. As a result of this, the MIT REAP workshop is expected to provide Abuja and its environs the impact-driven strategic tools to harness the various forms of economic activity around Agriculture, such as enhancing innovation from ICT, R&D and other methods to deliver growth, opportunity and employment through the scaling up of Innovation Driven Entrepreneurship. The same approach could also be applied around sectors like Mining, Materials, Construction and Logistics.
After the first workshop, Team Abuja engaged in a variety of activities with various stakeholder groups to assess the current state. Following workshop 2, the team will move to the next phase of widening its reach and strategically engaging more entities in the drive to achieve collaborative growth in the territory.
The Executive Secretary, PEF(M)B and the Co-Champion of Abuja MIT-REAP, Ahmed A. Bobboi, made the following remarks about the event:
The MIT-Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program held its Workshop 2 with the theme: Vision to Practical Action: Invest in Your Comparative Advantage hosted by the Nile University of Nigeria was very informative, educative, instructive, and enlightening.
The Nile University environment was very comfortable and conducive for the workshop. It enables the participants to have a sense of reasoning with the various modern IT facilities, to make the workshop a truly successful one.
There is no doubt that Nile is a progressive and modern University. It has a big role to play in the development of education in Nigeria, especially in IT, innovation, and Entrepreneurship.
The Abuja MIT-REAP Team is very committed to developing technology and innovation particularly in economic activities around agriculture, to enhance more opportunity and employment of our teeming youths through scaling up Innovation Driven Entrepreneurship.
On behalf of the Abuja MIT-REAP team, we appreciate the Nile University for affording the team opportunity to meet and interact with other MIT-REAP Teams around the globe virtually like Fukuoka City-Japan, New Taipei City-Taiwan, Ha’il-Northern Saudi Arabia and Denmark via zoom.
I also appreciate our team members, and other participants, especially Nile University, for their dedication and hospitality.
Thank you.
More information on REAP can be found at reap.mit.edu
