In this edition of ISN hubs featuring innovation centres in Nigeria, Emmanuel Olujobi, Head of Growth and Partnerships at Jasper SME hub Lagos, shared his thoughts about how the Lagos-based hub is supporting businesses through its programs, product and partnerships.
Jasper SME Hub has positioned itself as an SME accelerator on the African continent as it facilitates interactions between growing businesses, financial providers (Banks and Fintechs) and regulators through its platforms, communities and events.
This is in addition to its Business Analytics Courses designed to help growing business leverage data for growth.
According to Olujobi, the hub was founded as most small business owners are unsure about the right tools and platforms to scale, particularly considering the loads of information, platforms and providers available.
“Our objective is simple – provide support to enable SMEs to grow from their first customer to their 1,000th customers within record time.
This we currently execute through our in-house Products, our monthly and annual Programmes (including the SMEFest, which brings together hundreds of business owners, policymakers and investors)and through our Partnerships with leading SME-related platform providers.”
Olujobi believes that hubs can foster innovation and entrepreneurship for their local community since they provide platforms for startups and entrepreneurs to easily access structures, funding and the right information to scale.
Furthermore, he believes that the state of innovation and entrepreneurship in Nigeria is fast developing and impressive, with a lot of opportunities.
On improving Nigeria’s technology, innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems, Olujobi shared that the government and private sectors are jointly doing a lot to empower the growth of startups and SMEs.
In his words, “Over the last couple of years, we have witnessed the launch of programmes and policies to drive the creativity of particular reference is the recently launched $600 million programme for young Nigerians in the technology and creative sectors by the office of the Vice President. Not to forget the role the private sector played in driving the Open banking framework.”
Olujobi believes that what is left is adequate awareness and advocacy, which is one way Jasper SME Hub has stood out within the sector.
“We have been committed to bringing policy markers, leading consultants from some of the Big Fours and other stakeholders to engage SMEs on what these programmes and policies, mean to the growth of their businesses and the economy at large.”
While expressing his thoughts on how helping members of the Jasper SME community access the right funding opportunities to scale, he also added that the hub has equally received testimonials of how its programmes have helped improve the operations and growth of their businesses.
Speaking further, Olujobi affirmed that in 2023, the hub is committed to helping 25,000 SMEs access the right platforms and tools to become better structured and eventually scale.
“Our partnership with leading payment and banking providers amongst others makes this possible. Thankful for the progress made so far.”
According to Olujobi, Jasper SME Hub has also paid particular interest to women’s participation in innovation and technology, first by driving internal participation as 55% of our workforce and over 60% of senior management at the Hub are ladies.
“We have also designed programmes to incentive female participation in our programmes. Recently, we opened conversations, with female-focused venture capital to support the growth of female entrepreneurs within our Community.”
On the role of ISN in Jasper Hub’s journey, Olujobi recounted how the Innovation Support Network played a significant part at the SMEFest 2023 by delivering a quality support to the success of the conference.
Concluding, Olujobi added that aside from helping 25,000 emerging businesses access the right platforms and products for growth, the hub would be launching the first version of its mobile app in H2 2023 and would be giving investors the opportunity of investing in small businesses.
Featured Image: Emmanuel Olujobi, Head of Growth and Partnerships at Jasper SME hub, Lagos
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