The National Board for Technology Incubation has secured a major partnership with Canada’s University of Toronto ahead of the 2026 edition of the NextGen Innovation Challenge, as part of efforts to deepen global collaboration and attract investment into Nigeria’s innovation ecosystem.

The Director General and Chief Executive Officer of NBTI, Dr Kazeem Raji, disclosed this on Tuesday while addressing a world press conference in Abuja to mark one year of what he described as innovation-driven transformation at the agency.

Raji said the University of Toronto, one of the world’s leading research institutions, would work with NBTI to strengthen research collaboration, artificial intelligence development, health innovation and the commercialisation of frontier technologies under the NextGen platform.

He noted that the Canadian partnership, alongside African Impact Initiatives, would position the 2026 NextGen Innovation Challenge as a transcontinental framework linking African innovators with North American research excellence and global impact investment networks

“The involvement of the University of Toronto signals strong international confidence in the quality of innovators emerging from Nigeria and provides a direct bridge between cutting-edge academic research and market-ready innovation,” Raji said.

According to him, African Impact Initiatives will complement the partnership by aligning impact capital and development-focused enterprise models to ensure that innovations emerging from the platform are commercially viable and socially transformative.

Raji explained that the partnership builds on the global visibility achieved by the NextGen Innovation Challenge in 2025, when Nigerian innovators were showcased in London, attracting thousands of applications nationwide and securing major international exposure.

He said the previous edition recorded investments ranging from $50,000 to $250,000 for several startups, while a Nigerian clean-energy firm, Interface Africa, secured £1.5m in investment.

Raji added that the NextGen model has since gained international recognition, including adoption across Commonwealth countries and engagement with global institutions, reinforcing Nigeria’s position in the global innovation space

He said expectations for the 2026 edition include an increase in investment-ready startups, measurable capital commitments, stronger global visibility for Nigerian innovation and sustainable public-private-international collaboration models.

“The Canada partnership reinforces NBTI’s strategic vision of positioning NextGen not as a regional initiative, but as a globally integrated innovation platform capable of producing ventures that can compete and scale on the world stage,” Raji said.

Media reports that the NextGen Innovation Challenge is designed to identify, support and scale high-potential Nigerian startups through structured incubation, mentorship and investment readiness pipelines.

The 2025 edition marked a turning point, achieving significant global exposure through events in London and partnerships with institutions in the United Kingdom and the wider Commonwealth.