UK-Nigeria Tech Hub Launches NICE to Fix Nigeria’s Startup Coordination Gap
Quick Reads
- The UK-Nigeria Tech Hub has launched a new programme called NICE the Nigeria Innovation Cluster Exchange to tackle a long-standing problem in Nigeria’s startup scene
- The numbers driving the push are stark. More than half of Nigerian youth underemployed, and fewer than one in ten startups make it past their third birthday.
- The programme grew out of the 2025 UK Digital Trade and Innovation Tour and being implemented by The Nest Innovation Technology Park.
The UK-Nigeria Tech Hub has launched the Nigeria Innovation Cluster Exchange (NICE), a new initiative designed to link Nigeria’s fragmented startup support ecosystem into a single coordinated national network, with a pilot phase that kicked off on July 6.
Funded under the UK Government’s Digital Access Programme and implemented by The Nest Innovation Technology Park, NICE built to connect entrepreneurship support organisations, research institutions, innovation hubs, startups, and public-sector stakeholders across all six of Nigeria’s geopolitical zones. Oluwajoba Oloba, co-founder of The Nest, described the launch as a structural intervention rather than another standalone programme. “We are not just launching a programme; we are activating the connective tissue Nigeria’s economy has long demanded,” he said.
The Nigeria Innovation Cluster Exchange developed from insights gathered at the 2025 UK Digital Trade and Innovation Tour, coordinated by the UK-Nigeria Tech Hub in partnership with the Office for Nigerian Digital Innovation (ONDI), with the aim of adapting international best practices to Nigeria’s local innovation landscape.
The urgency behind the initiative backed by data
National Bureau of Statistics figures cited by the organisers show youth underemployment above 53%, while fewer than one in ten Nigerian startups survive beyond their third year numbers that point to a systemic failure in ecosystem support rather than a shortage of entrepreneurial energy.
Nigeria’s tech sector has nonetheless expanded rapidly across fintech, agritech, cybersecurity, and health tech, but the organisers say most entrepreneurship support organisations operate in isolation, leading to duplicated efforts and limited access to shared resources. NICE’s pilot programme addresses this directly through ecosystem mapping, knowledge exchange, and collaborative innovation projects that cut across geographic boundaries.
The initial focus covers three high-growth sectors agritech, cybersecurity, and health tech with plans to build partnership models to scale as the programme moves beyond its pilot phase.
