Innovation: A Leeway Out of Recession- Omeruo

Recession is the now the buzzword globally. But the solutions are handy, only if innovators, especially where innovators are provided with adequate supports.

Since the report about Nigeria’s economy sliding to recession, fear has gripped the people; large, medium and small businesses are not spared, but we have failed to build ‘sustainable economy’. It is not obvious to us that an economy built around ‘mono-product’ like oil will not stand the test of time.

What are we saying? As the United Nations (UN) 71st General Assembly opened last week, new President of the General Assembly, Peter Thomson, pledged to ‘turn the wheels’ on implementing the new global development goals, adopted by its 193 Member States last year, of which Nigeria is a member.

On 1 January 2016, the 17 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — adopted by world leaders in September last year – officially came into force. Over the next fifteen years, with the aim of achieving the SDGs, countries will mobilize efforts to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind.

The new Assembly President noted that it had been heartening to observe the sincerity with which governments and national planning agencies around the world have begun integrating the 2030 Agenda into national processes.

“But make no mistake, the great majority of humankind has yet to learn of the Agenda; it has yet to embrace the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, that if successfully implemented will bring an end to poverty and secure a sustainable place for humanity on this planet,” Thomson said.

Well, it may prove very hard to ascertain Federal Government of Nigeria’s thinking about the SDG even with offices scattered all over the 774 local governments, because the economy must survive.

That is why we are proposing that innovation will make the walk out of recession easier for us; and then, we can come out better or stronger. 

Era of Innovation
There is no gain reemphasizing that the era of innovation is now. Let’s draw our minds to just one aspect of the innovation which is still at its medieval stage in Nigeria- Artificial Intelligence.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently identified Artificial Intelligence (AI) as one of the top 6 trends shaping the society today. Gartner’s 2016 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies has the perceptual smart machine age as a top 3 trend. And Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said that "we should be very careful about artificial intelligence ... it is perhaps our biggest existential threat."

But the ‘AI of Everything’ era is here and Nigeria and Nigerians can’t afford to play the second fiddle.

The near future will see large parts of our lives influenced by the AI of Everything (AoE) – an inflection point for humankind; an unprecedented era of: Hyper time compression in the emergence of new disruptive innovations — measured in days and weeks rather than years; extreme convergence of multiple domains: physical, digital, biological – where there is overlapping amplification of value; exponential acceleration of automation – triggered by smart sensors and the IoT and connectivity linked by a digital AI mesh – through the rapid deployment of machine learning.

International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Group report also identified Artificial Intelligence (AI) as “creating a digital quake where 80 percent of companies and jobs may need to change or fail. Machines can execute repetitive tasks with complete precision, and with recent advances in AI, machines are gaining the ability to learn, improve and make calculated decisions in ways that will enable them to perform tasks previously thought to rely on human experience, creativity, and ingenuity”.

Thus, AI will also come to support emerging applications in the IoT space, with billions of devices, things and objects gaining the ability to learn from patterns observed in their environment and communicate these learnings to a larger ecosystem of intelligent devices.

AI is a crucial aspect of innovations that will be central to the achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by capitalizing on the unprecedented quantities of data now being generated on sentiment behavior, human health, commerce, communications, migration and more.

For instance, machine learning and reasoning can extend medical care to remote regions through automated diagnosis and effective exploitation of limited medical expertise and transportation resources (SDG 3). Methods developed within the AI community may even help to unearth causal influences within large-scale development programs, helping us to build a better understanding of how we might design more effective education systems (SDG 4). Ideas and tools created at the intersection of AI and electronic commerce may uncover new ways to enhance novel economic concepts, such as micro-finance and micro-work (SDG 8). AI will also serve as a key resource in curbing greenhouse gas emissions in urban environments and supporting the development of smart cities (SDGs 11 & 13).

As a country, we should never relent on articulating plans and policies to galvanize the IT industry’s prowess in tackling our collective challenges such as the present economic recession.

At this juncture, permit me to remind you about the Nigeria Innovation Summit(www.innovationsummit.ng) holding 3-4 November,2016 at Sheraton Lagos Hotel, Ikeja under the Theme- “Innovation: A Key Driver Of Economic Growth And Sustainable Development”.

You will agree with me that the forthcoming Nigeria Innovation Summit is apt and right on time.

NIS is an annual event that focuses on the need for the country, businesses, organisations, entrepreneurs in Nigeria to become more innovative and apply innovation to drive sustainable development as we work together to bridge the digital divide.

This summit helps Nigeria embrace innovation and move in the direction of digital transformation through the use of Emerging Technologies and Trends, Research, Development, Commercialization, Entrepreneurship and Investments as the key drivers of an innovation ecosystem. This is a platform that creates awareness on the need for Open Innovation in Nigeria. It challenges Nigeria to leverage Innovation and become more competitive in the global economy.

The initiative is led by Emerging Media and Advertising Services, New York and Emerging Media Nigeria; partnering with the world's leading innovation providers from academia, government and industry to connect Nigerian businesses and Innovators to global innovation ecosystems.

The key features of the Nigeria Innovation Summit are the Keynote presentations and Panel discussions from Industry Leaders, Government, Investors, leading companies, international organisations, Top Entrepreneurs, CEOs, Business leaders, Innovation Managers across the world and decision makers across the focus sectors.

There will be Nigeria Innovation Awards at the summit which recognizes and promotes companies, organisations, institutions, innovators that have embraced innovation across different sectors of Nigeria economy. List of carefully chosen speakers will soon be announced. Stay Tuned!

Kenneth Omeruo is the Founder/CEO, Emerging Media and chief Convener of the Nigeria Innovation Summit holding 3-4 November,2016 at Sheraton Lagos Hotel, Ikeja under the Theme- Innovation: A Key Driver Of Economic Growth And Sustainable Development.