Mary Nnah
Co-founder and CEO, HerVest, Solape Akinpelu recently gave insights on how to leverage the Nigerian digital and innovation ecosystem.
She said there is no way one can speak about the Digital and Innovation Ecosystem in Nigeria without mentioning the use of digital technologies, which she said provides solutions to everyday problems, resulting in the creation of smart and digital communities.
She said this while speaking during a high-level panel focusing on “Digital and Innovation Ecosystem in Nigeria – challenges, success stories and opportunities.
Hosted by the Ambassador of the European Union to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Ms. Samuela Isopi, and the CEO of The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), Mrs. Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu, the panel held on the occasion of the visit to Nigeria of the Executive Vice President of the European Commission, Ms. Margrethe Vestager.
Akinpelu stated that the Digital and Innovation Ecosystem simply entails the digital networks and how they are applied in day-to-day living to solve problems.
Explaining that for her team at HerVest, as a product operating in the digital and innovation ecosystem, their goal is to continuously provide financial inclusion for women through a Gender Lens approach, using digital tools.
She explained that HerVest is an innovative enterprise that heavily leverages digital systems to help women everywhere to take control of their finances, one impact at a time, taking advantage of digital tools to provide access to a cooperative community of women who in turn receive competitive returns on both savings and partnerships with female farmers, and free mentoring on financial literacy.
Akinpelu highlighted some of the tools to include file sharing and storage tools, team and project management tools, website tools, productivity, design tools, mobile applications, payments and money management systems, digital banking, and investment systems, among others.
“HerVest takes technology to these women and with technology, we are able to strengthen their capacity through a guided gender-lens approach.
“We also provide customer support through location-based channels towards making decisive impact investments, especially in female small-scale farmers who mostly lack access to capital and market.
“Acknowledging that it is a 360-degree process facilitated by technological tools, we go from boardroom to the farm and back all the while addressing the gender gap in agriculture, providing growth opportunities towards specific crops, training, and market linkages for female small-scale farmers in rural areas,’’ she said.
