Local content agency seeks innovations in Nigerian oil industry

The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board has unveiled a new initiative aimed at stimulating innovations in the oil and gas industry and ancillary sectors.

The initiative, called BrentPlus, seeks to create a platform for local creation of digital technologies, according to a statement on Saturday.

The Executive Secretary, NCDMB, Mr Simbi Wabote, said one of the strategic initiatives under the Nigerian content 10-year roadmap “is to promote the development of innovative in-country solutions” in the industry.

According to him, the processes of BrentPlus are Problems Definition, Call for Innovation, Nigerian Oil and Gas Technology Hackathon, Incubation and Scale-Up.

He said at the Problems Definition stage, the board would administer surveys to focus groups and stakeholders to understand the biggest challenges facing the industry.

Wabote said the NCDMB would soon hold a webinar to get feedback on the opportunities for digital innovation.

“The problems must not be related to the oil and gas sector. It can be daily life problems,” he said.

According to him, the agency will pick out the biggest challenges and call for innovations from interested teams with ideas, prototypes, solutions and relevant experiences, and the applications will be reviewed by judges and shortlisted, with a few selected.

He said the third stage of the BrentPlus process would be a Hackathon – a three-day residential camp where “participating teams will meet with industry stakeholders and further understand the challenges”.

“Teams will revalidate their solutions and pitch at the end of boot camp. Five winning teams will be selected,” Wabote said.

According to him, the Hackathon enables crowd sourcing of digital innovations that will solve challenges.

“The idea is to provide a platform for individuals to get together for a short period of time to collaborate on a project,” he added.

Wabote said during the incubation stage, ”five winning teams will get $10,000 equity-free grant each. They will also get work-space, expert mentors, global partners and unprecedented market access over three-months, ensuring they become commercial and investor-ready.”

“At the end of the incubation, the teams will participate in a showcase day to demonstrate their progress. This showcase will aim to connect them with investors and industry stakeholders where they can further amplify their market access.”

According to him, participants must be a team/company of at least two or more members with at least 75 percent of the founding team as Nigerians.

Wabote said, “The team/company must be a registered, or intending to register as a profit/business entity. The solution described in response to the challenge must be driven by digital technology – software, hardware or both.

“The solution must either be at idea stage, prototype level or a launched solution that hasn’t gained commercial traction. The team must be available to participate in a three-day hackathon as well as a three-month incubation, if selected.”

The NCDMB boss solicited for industry’s collaboration and support in helping to understand most pressing challenges and provide datasets that can be useful for the innovators.