In a bold step toward transforming Nigeria’s business policy landscape, the National Entrepreneurship Research Institute (NERI) organized the country’s first-ever National Policy Hackathon in April 2024. The event, held at the International Conference Centre in Abuja, gathered a diverse community of over 250 participants—including entrepreneurs, legal experts, regulators, technologists, scholars, and development partners—for a three-day policy innovation marathon.
The central theme of the hackathon was “Reforming for Resilience: Co-Creating Policy Pathways for Nigeria’s Entrepreneurs.” Participants worked in cross-sector teams to tackle some of the country’s most pressing micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSME) policy challenges. Topics ranged from tax policy and registration bottlenecks to intellectual property protections and procurement access.
NERI designed the event to depart from the traditional top-down approach to policymaking. “We wanted to democratize the process by inviting the very people affected by these policies, entrepreneurs themselves, into the room where ideas are shaped,” said Dr. Tunde Fadahunsi, NERI’s Director of Policy and Research.
Event Highlights:
- Panel Discussions: Sessions featuring high-level representatives from the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Corporate Affairs Commission, and Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) addressed the persistent structural barriers MSMEs face when navigating regulatory environments.
- Innovation Sprints: Participants formed 20 hack teams, each assigned a specific policy challenge. Using real data from the field, they brainstormed, prototyped, and pitched solutions within 48 hours.
- Judging Panel: Proposals were evaluated by a panel comprising industry veterans, government advisors, and development economists based on criteria like feasibility, inclusiveness, cost-effectiveness, and implementation timeline.
Among the standout proposals were:
- A Unified MSME Tax Template that simplifies payment categories and timelines for micro-businesses across federal and state levels.
- A Centralized Grant Application Portal to streamline access to government and donor funding using a one-ID authentication model.
- A Policy Feedback Loop Framework, proposing a digital dashboard to monitor MSME sentiments and flag implementation failures in real-time.
NERI has since submitted the top five proposals to the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment and is currently in dialogue with multiple MDAs to integrate pilot versions of the winning ideas into national policy trials.
The hackathon closed with a call to action from NERI’s Director General, Engr. Adebayo Akinwale, who emphasized the importance of agility in governance. “We must build a system that listens, learns, and adapts. Entrepreneurs are not just economic actors, they are policy stakeholders,” she declared.
NERI plans to institutionalize the Policy Hackathon as an annual flagship event, with future editions expected to take place in state capitals to deepen grassroots participation and responsiveness.
