Innovate UK KTN Media Dialogue Puts Women Innovators In Spotlight

The opportunities, as well as challenges facing women innovators in Nigeria, came under the spotlight at the first of the Women in Innovation session of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Innovation Media Series, Women in Innovation, a virtual event held on Tuesday hosted by Innovate UK KTN’s Global Alliance Africa project.

Rachel Obrike, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Programme Lead, Innovate UK, underscored the importance of amplifying women’s voices and showing women innovators that are making a difference in the community.

“So how do we spotlight? How do we amplify the voices of our women? We do this through PR and media coverage. We do this through telling stories,” said Ms Obrike. 

“There’s so much power in telling stories. And we do this through telling stories we are all used to in Nigeria, we tell stories from generation to generation, which is really powerful. And it’s also about creating content as we heard at the beginning and also building awareness.”

Ms Obrike said Innovate UK, supported by Innovate UK KTN, has two targeted programmes – the Young Innovators Programme and the Women in Innovation Programme –  to help engender equality diversity and inclusion as well as address under-representation in business innovation.   

“One thing about the Women in Innovation Programme and the Young Innovators Programme is around the role model aspects,” she said. 

“We know how important it is for you to see someone that’s like you or where you want to be and then you work towards that. So we are using the Women Innovation Programme and the Young Innovators Programme to shatter various stereotypes and perceptions. And this is really important.”

Women innovators

Three panellists took part in a Zoom discussion themed ‘Break the Bias: Focus on the Nigerian Media.’

A panellist, Oluwaseyi Ebenezer, the Founder of Triple G Eco Revival Solutions, said as a woman innovator, her major challenge is people not believing in her. She told a story of how her company registered as a consultant to a Nigerian government agency and she was invited for an interview.

“When I entered the interview room, the panel were all men… They didn’t want to ask me a question that ordinarily they would ask me. I had to tell them ‘I know you are expecting a man but I’m the founder of the company and I think I’m the right person to ask questions or answer questions.’ 

“One of the problems as a woman innovator is people not believing in what we have to say or bring to the table. It’s a cultural thing, it’s a stereotype thing that we have to continually prove ourselves over and over. Most times it’s very frustrating.”

Another panellist, Odunola Olabintan, Founder and Team Lead, The Health City, said people expect that women should take supporting roles when it comes to innovation. 

“People don’t associate innovation with women,” she said.

“There is a passive questioning of your intelligence and your capacity to do the work that you are doing. They keep testing you at every turn to make sure you are actually capable of the work that you actually started. A lot of people believe that women should take less intellectually challenging roles.”

A key challenge facing women innovators is a dearth of access to venture capital funds, compared to their male counterparts.

In the UK, for instance, a government-commissioned research found that less than one per cent of venture capital funds go to start-ups wholly run by women.

Another panellist, Obo Henshaw, Technical Advisor of Science and Innovation, UK FCDO West Africa, said people, and women as well, have to be ready for funding opportunities when they come. 

“Sometimes you find that funders or investors are looking for people to fund but they find that the people they want to invest in are not investablenvestment-able. 

“My challenge [to women] is that they take as much advantage of the opportunities that already exist for you to learn what the investors are looking for, and make sure you are ready when the opportunities present themselves.”

Interventions

Sophie West, Africa Regional Lead, Innovate UK KTN, said the organisation is working in partnership to strengthen the innovation ecoinfo systems within Kenya, Nigeria . and South Africa.

“So within Nigeria at the moment, we have four different interventions, one focused on strengthening the investment pipeline, one looking at open innovation using some of our innovation exchange models,  one focused on, place-based innovation, for which we selected Ekiti State, to collectively strengthen the innovation ecosystem through the delivery of activities against an Innovation Action Plan, one looking at innovation, governance and knowledge exchange and how, perhaps, through the lights of commerce and partnerships, we can look at how the policy innovation policy and environment stand.”

Ms West said the organisation has also held a number of open innovation challenges. 

“So really looking at how we can support as Innovate UK KTN and provide a platform for innovative solutions to challenges that are in the industry levels.”

Ms Obrike said her organisation commissioned a research in 2016 because they found that one in seven applications came from women that were coming into Innovate UK. 

“Many of the women said that it was their gender that affected them in terms of the applications that were coming in.”

In 2016, Innovate UK launched its Women in Innovation Programme, a project aimed at shattering stereotypes and creating an innovation system that is fair, open and inclusive. 

“So we support women with their innovation, and with their businesses,” Ms Obrike continued. 

“The winner receives a £50,000 cash injection, and then a targeted innovation advisor through the 12 month period and mentoring. And again, the impact that we have seen is women coming out more confident, taking their business to the next level, because the aim of the competition is really to find pioneering women with innovative ideas. 

“The innovation can range from digital, essentially the women are answering societal, environmental or economic challenges, which is fantastic. So we want to support the women with their businesses and with their innovation.”

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