By Onu Okorie

Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure NASENI Mr. Khalil Suleiman Halilu, has formally presented the top six winners of the maiden NASENI Innovation Assessment and Awards NIAA to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation SGF, Senator George Akume with grants totalling N162.5m.
The winners emerged from the Inter-Agency and Intra-Agency categories of the competition, which was organised under the theme “Driving Innovation, Accelerating Industrialization, Transforming Nigeria.” In all, NASENI awarded ₦140 million in development grants to three winning Inter-Agency projects and ₦22.5 million in cash prizes to three top Intra-Agency winners drawn from NASENI and its institutes, to help the innovators support, scale and commercialise their technological solutions.
Speaking at the presentation, Halilu explained the thinking behind the initiative, stressing that public servants remain central to the country’s technological progress. He said NASENI’s growing national footprint, which includes more than 20 factories being facilitated and over 40 indigenous products developed, was made possible by civil servants working quietly behind the scenes.
He said the realisation that civil servants were driving this growth prompted the agency to set aside dedicated funding for innovators working within public service.
Halilu added that the initiative remains anchored on NASENI’s core pillars of Creation, Collaboration and Commercialisation, popularly known as the 3Cs, which are aimed at moving research out of laboratories and into practical, market-ready solutions addressing national security, energy and economic needs.
678 Registered, 261 Entries Screened — Olasupo
Giving background on the selection process, the Director of Manufacturing Services at NASENI and Chairman of the Innovation Awards Committee, Engr. Dr. Olayode A. Olasupo, disclosed that 678 users registered on the online submission portal built by NASENI’s ICT department, yielding 261 complete entries — 180 from the intra-agency category and 81 from the inter-agency category — spanning thematic areas such as engineering design, software development, renewable energy, healthcare and agriculture.
He explained that entries went through a two-stage preliminary screening process, beginning with specialised computer algorithms for compliance review, followed by expert technical evaluation. Twenty finalists, ten from each category, subsequently progressed to a physical pitching session at NASENI Headquarters, where they defended their technical and commercial propositions before an independent panel of assessors drawn from industry and academia to ensure transparency and credibility.
Olasupo confirmed that the ₦140 million development grant for the top three Inter-Agency teams was approved by the EVC/CEO to help them prototype and scale their products, while the ₦22.5 million cash prize was shared among the top three Intra-Agency staff winners.
Innovation Hub to Provide Incubation Support
The Head of the NASENI Innovation Hub, Mrs. Busola Perez-Folayan, said the Hub would now provide tailored incubation support, business development assistance and investor-matching services to help transition the winning ideas into scalable, commercialised market products.