Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode has said
plans are afoot to transform the Sabo Industrial Estate in Yaba area of the
State to a technology hub and another Silicon Valley where new set of
entrepreneurs and innovators will be raised to address the challenges
confronting the nation in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
sector. Silicon Valley, which is in San Francisco Bay Area of California,
United States, is home to many of the world’s largest high-tech corporations
and thousands of startup companies.
Governor Ambode, who spoke during an extensive inspection
tour across the State, said government will actualize the plan of transforming
Sabo to the new hub for technology in 2017 and assist the already established
technology incubators in the area to achieve their full potentials. Some of the
technology outfits visited in the area by the Governor included Ardela, IDEA
and CC Hub, among others. The Governor, who was joined on the inspection by top
government functionaries and former Minister of Communications and Technology,
Mrs. Omobola Johnson, said government was desirous of assisting entrepreneurs
in the ICT sector to become good startups, adding that his administration would
explore all the available initiatives in that regard. He said to start with, entrepreneurs
in the sector would be allowed to access the N25billion Employment Trust Fund
(ETF), which is an initiative of his administration, to grow their businesses,
as well as other interventions from the State’s Ministry of Wealth Creation and
Employment.
He said: “I decided to come here just for me to feel the
state of things and to learn about your challenges. Our government is seriously
committed to assisting entrepreneurs like the ones here to be able to be good
startups. “I want to also say that we will use our Employment Trust Fund to
support this concept here.” The Governor said one of the factors considered
when government was setting up the ETF was the need to set up incubators, but
with the progress made in that regard by the private sector, government would
now only build on the existing technology incubators.
Source:www.vanguardngr.com
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