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Mr Toro Orero, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Zone Tech Park, a technology hub and Nigerian business-to-business venture builder, on Wednesday inaugurated the outfit, valued at 6.5million U.S dollars.
Speaking at the event in Lagos, Orero said that the park was built with the necessary infrastructure and environment needed to help African startups to scale up and compete globally.
He said, “Today sees the official launch of Zone Tech Park, a venture builder for startups that has come to turn great ideas into products and services quickly, efficiently and profitably.
“It is one of the nation’s premier technology park, a dynamic community, where innovation and business leaders meet, emerging companies and techniques giants work side-by-side.”
Orero described the park as the brainchild of Mr Bolaji Olagunju, a serial entrepreneur and CEO of Workforce Group, a leading human resources firm.
“We have brought our vast experiences together to enhance the growth of startups in the country,” he said.
He said that Zone Tech’s startups would have direct access to more than 400 domestic and international corporations.
He described the park as unique from similar technology hubs in Africa because “it is open to startups at all stages in their life cycle, from ideas on paper to maturity.”
Orero further said that the park would help to link up startups with a network of potential investors, accelerator programme and ecosystem architects.
He said that the park would provide a team of experienced in-house software developers and designers to work with the startups.
According to him, the park also boasts of facilities, such as 100-capacity meeting rooms as well as 650-capacity event and conference halls.
Orero said that the park had previously run a small pilot program and also built a learning management system and a staff on-demand solution products, known as Peerless and Outwork.
Earlier in his speech, Olagunju said that they were motivated to establish the park by the challenges that hinder African startups from growth.
He said, “Zone Tech will change the status quo and help individuals and their businesses to realise their full potential through education, venture building and strategic enterprise support.
“Supporting this startups will help to push up the needed workforce that is lacking in the country,” he said.
He said that building a tech ecosystem that would benefit startups and the country needed the collaboration of stakeholders, including the media.
“The power of the tech ecosystem is such that one cannot do things on its own, there is need for partnerships. That is what Zone Tech Park is all about,” Olagunju said.
He gave assurance that the organisation would ensure that the business model of any startups made sense and in tune with the organisation’s own model.