How many technology hubs exist in Nigeria? Chances are good that your answer would be “just one” — the Co-Creation Hub in Yaba, Lagos.
And you would be wrong. If you answered “two”, you would still be wrong. Because there isn’t one or two, there are in fact, three technology hubs in Nigeria right now. The world famous Co-Creation Hub, which everyone knows, obviously. The Wennovation Hub, also in Lagos, but not nearly as popular as the former. And then there’s the iBridge Hub in Ibadan, Oyo State, which I’m fairly certain you’re learning of for the first time.
Lagos might have the largest concentration of tech heads, but there are enough forward-looking people scattered across the length and breadth of Nigeria that it was only a matter of time before another innovation cluster formed outside of the country’s de-facto business and technology nerve center.
As it turns out such a cluster has finally taken root in West Africa’s largest city. The iBridge hub, which had a relatively quiet launch on the 1st of October, boasts of facilities like broadband internet, a cafe, a cinema, a presentation room and a comfortable open community workspace. In characteristic hub fashion, iBridge Hub offers membership tiers that allow varying levels of access to its facilities.
It’s probably more accurate to describe iBridge as an innovation hub, rather than box it into a tech-specific paradigm. Of course, technology will play a huge part in the activities that are expected to take place, but in keeping with the motivations of its founders, the focus is on youth empowerment across the entire professional spectrum and inspiring them to engage in innovative enterprise that creates value for them as well as the larger society. The hub aims to achieve these by affording its members access to mentorship, personal development training, business and entrepreneurship coaching, and venture capital.
Technology and innovation hubs continue to spring up all over Africa at an amazing rate, it is said that there are now over 90 of them spread out across the continent. As the concentration of these clusters become denser they are also spawning innovation ecosystems in their immediate environments. Like Kenya and South Africa, these hubs are now beginning to spring up in multiple cities across Nigeria. Ibadan is no more than a 90 minute drive from Lagos, but there is talk to similar ventures happening elsewhere, such as the Tinapa Knowledge City, in Cross-Rivers State.
I planned to visit the iBridge Hub before the end of this year to meet its founders and get a better sense of the space, as well as the implications for the large Nigerian innovation society, but at this rate, it doesn’t look like I’ll make it to Ibadan in 2012. However, a tour of the hub is high on my 2013 priority list, hopefully in January. By then, I expect that activities at this new venture would have begun to move into high gear by then, and that there will be interesting things to report.
