IHS Nigeria is positioning infrastructure and ecosystem investment at the centre of Nigeria’s innovation future, as it deepens its backing of the Ilorin Innovation Hub, where startups are beginning to transition from ideas to scalable ventures.
At the Demo Day marking a year since the launch of the hub’s accelerator programme, the company set out a vision that places connectivity, talent development and regional expansion at the heart of the country’s evolving tech landscape.
Speaking at the event, Akeem Adesina, Chief Commercial Officer of IHS Nigeria, positions digital infrastructure as the often overlooked engine behind innovation.
“We live in an era of rapid digital transformation, from artificial intelligence to robotics to 5G connectivity and to mobile computing,” he says. “Technology is shaping every facet of our human lives, and the key to this is around the infrastructure backbone.”
“We live in an era of rapid digital transformation, from artificial intelligence to robotics to 5G connectivity and to mobile computing,” he says. “Technology is shaping every facet of our human lives, and the key to this is around the infrastructure backbone.”
IHS Nigeria: Infrastructure backbone drives technology innovation
For IHS, that backbone is already extensive. The company operates over 16,000 towers across Nigeria and has deployed more than 15,000 kilometres of fibre, infrastructure that Adesina says enables millions of Nigerians to access digital services, from online learning to e-commerce.
But beyond scale, the company is leaning into inclusion.
“Our connectivity must also be inclusive, not just for the elite,” he says, pointing to investments in more than 500 rural communities. “We continue to invest in our rural coverage to ensure that everyone participates in the digital economy.”
The Ilorin Innovation Hub, IHS Nigeria says, offers a visible expression of that broader strategy. Conceived through a partnership between the Kwara State Government and IHS Nigeria, the hub is designed to decentralise Nigeria’s innovation ecosystem, shifting attention beyond traditional centres like Lagos and Abuja.
Temi Kolawole, Managing Director of the hub, describes the Demo Day as a deliberate convergence of stakeholders rarely seen outside Nigeria’s major cities.
“In this room today we have government, industry, technology, telecommunications, renewable energy investors, venture capitalists not in Lagos, not in Abuja,” he says. “Innovation is not just a Lagos conversation for us, it is a Nigeria conversation.”
“In this room today we have government, industry, technology, telecommunications, renewable energy investors, venture capitalists not in Lagos, not in Abuja,” he says. “Innovation is not just a Lagos conversation for us, it is a Nigeria conversation.”
That shift is beginning to take shape in the startups themselves. Nine teams presented 10 products at the Demo Day, with solutions spanning energy, waste management, infrastructure monitoring and sustainability.
Temitope Yusuf, Vice President, Group Audit and Risk at IHS, says the programme has moved founders beyond theory into practical problem-solving.
“When you really listen to their pitches, they’re solving real-life problems,” she says. “If those problems can scale, then they’re helping their communities creating another set of entrepreneurs that can impact the GDP of Nigeria.”
The Demo Day also marks a transition point. After months of training and product development, the startups are now preparing to seek funding and scale their operations.
“Now they will seek for funds and then scale their business, scale the products and impact the larger society,” Yusuf says.
For IHS, this pipeline of talent is as critical as the infrastructure that supports it. The company highlighted its role in supporting the Federal Government’s 3 Million Technical Talent initiative, which has enrolled over 140,000 engineers and created thousands of job opportunities.
At the same time, it is investing in STEM education, teacher training and digital tools in schools, aiming to build a long-term foundation for innovation.
Adesina emphasises that infrastructure, talent and sustainability must evolve together.
“The infrastructure of tomorrow must be smart, efficient and green,” he says, pointing to investments in renewable energy solutions, including solar-powered sites and hydropower systems.
Yet, for all the progress on display, speakers repeatedly stressed that the Demo Day is not an endpoint.
“Demo Day is not the finish line it is the beginning,” Kolawole says, describing the event as a starting line for startups entering a more demanding phase of growth.
Taken together, the Ilorin experiment signals a broader shift in how Nigeria’s innovation economy is being built, one that blends state support, private capital and critical infrastructure to create new tech clusters outside established urban strongholds.
As IHS expands its footprint across connectivity, talent and ecosystem development, the company is betting that the next wave of Nigerian innovation may not emerge from its usual centres, but from places like Ilorin, where the building blocks are now being put in place.
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