Watch 60 Innovators present prototypes of their innovations in a Livestreamed Pitch session from Monday, August 24th – Thursday August 27th on YouTube, X, Instagram and Facebook.
The NASENI Innovation Hub (NIH) commenced FutureMakers Week yesterday, Monday, the 24th of August, as all 60 shortlisted innovators from last week’s regional Virtual Hackathon move into the programme’s live Pitch Sessions, where they’ve begun presenting solutions built over four days of intensive prototyping to a panel of judges and industry leaders.
The Pitch Sessions, which will run from today, Monday, 24 August through Thursday, 27 August 2026, will be streamed live and open to the public on YouTube, X, Instagram, and Facebook. Innovators from all six geopolitical zones North West, North Central, North East, South West, South South and South East will present the prototypes they built during the Virtual Hackathon, which ran from 17 to 20 August.
Winners from each zone will receive ₦1.5 million, ₦1 million and ₦500,000 prizes, respectively. The top six zonal winners will then progress to pitch at the NASENI Invention Fest, competing for a ₦5 million grand prize, a fully funded study tour abroad, and scholarships to two leading Nigerian universities.
“Today, the ideas our FutureMakers have spent four days building will move from prototype to public stage,” said Khalil Suleiman Halilu, Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of NASENI. “This is the moment that matters most watching young Nigerians defend solutions to problems their own communities face.”
“Today, these ideas stop being confined to a whiteboard or a pitch deck,” said Busola Beckley Perez-Folayan, Hub Manager, NASENI Innovation Hub. “In the South West, a child is presenting an AI-powered learning platform that closes the education access gap for underserved communities. In the North East, a young girl is presenting a life-saving emergency alert device connecting vulnerable communities directly to the authorities. In the North Central region, a child is presenting a platform built to ensure vulnerable populations gain reliable access to nutritious food. These are three of the sixty ideas our FutureMakers built entirely from the safety of their homes, and today, Nigeria gets to see them.”
Beyond the prize money, winners gain access to NASENI’s SparkLab prototyping facility, a study tour abroad with the EVC/CEO of NASENI, structured technical training, and personalised mentorship reinforcing FutureMakers’ positioning as a talent pipeline rather than a one-off competition. The programme is delivered in collaboration with academic and ecosystem partners including MIVA Open University and the African University of Science and Technology (AUST), Abuja. The NASENI Innovation Hub is a member of the AfriLabs network.
About FutureMakers by NASENI
FutureMakers by NASENI is the flagship innovation programme of the NASENI Innovation Hub, identifying and supporting early-stage Nigerian innovators building technology solutions to challenges specific to their regions, with access to funding, mentorship, training and NASENI’s engineering and prototyping infrastructure.
About the NASENI Innovation Hub
The NASENI Innovation Hub is the innovation and startup-support arm of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure, based in Abuja. NIH runs programmes including FutureMakers by NASENI and NASENI Xceler8, supporting founders from idea stage through to commercialisation.
About NASENI
The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) is the Federal
Government agency mandated to build Nigeria’s science, engineering and technological
infrastructure base and to drive the country’s transition from a consumer to a producer economy. NASENI is led by Executive Vice Chairman/CEO Khalil Suleiman Halilu.
Media Contact
Olaoluwa Adewusi — Communications & Community Manager, NASENI Innovation Hub
Email: adewusi.olaoluwa@naseni.gov.ng | Phone: 08134876011 | @nasenihub across all social media
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