United States’ Queens Borough and the Lagos State Government have teamed together to promote cross-border technical advancements, give Nigerian businesses access to capital, and promote entrepreneurial and economic growth between the two cities.
The alliance is a learning-exchange partnership with the goal of fostering cooperation, highlighting common interests, and laying the groundwork for successful future joint initiatives that will have a long-lasting effect on the innovation ecosystems in Lagos and Queens Borough.
Donovan Richards, the president of Queens Borough, New York, stated that only 12% of the tech positions in the United States are held by people of color during a tech ecosystem event held to promote entrepreneurship and economic growth between Lagos and New York City.
He said that the cooperation between Queens Borough and Lagos State would close the gap by offering black and African people greater opportunity to access capital, cross-order opportunities, and grow their markets outside of Lagos and New York’s borders and become global solution providers.
According to Richards, Lagos has the largest digital and innovation ecosystem on the African continent and merits the necessary cross-border collaboration for access to funding to support scaling up and developing sustainable solutions by businesspeople, inventors, and policymakers.
“Lagos is a hub for black brilliance, black leadership, black innovation and black participation, and we are creating such partnerships and pipelines to help more people of colour get tech funding,” he added
The partnership, according to Olatunbosun Alake, a former special adviser to the governor of Lagos State on innovation and technology, is in line with the state’s mission to create opportunities and foster collaboration in the tech sector with specific plans on how to resource, build, and generate economic value from the tech ecosystems.
According to him, the state government intends to keep assisting business owners and other stakeholders in adding value through the development of cross-border alliances and connections that would be advantageous to the regional economy.
