Over the weekend, the Lagos Business School (LBS), Pan-Atlantic University community was warmly welcomed at Cowrywise HQ in Ikeja, Lagos for the Competing with Technology and Innovation (CTI) Practice-Based Innovation Project an initiative that highlights the growing synergy between academia and industry in Nigeria.
The project stems from the LBS Modular MBA elective course, Competing with Technology and Innovation, led by Dr. Chidozie Nsoedo. Designed to bridge classroom learning and real-world practice, the course challenges students to apply innovation frameworks to actual business environments. For this edition, students partnered with Cowrywise, a leading Nigerian fintech company known for driving digital savings and investment solutions.
Cowrywise CEO, Mr. Razaq Ahmed
Opening the event, Cowrywise CEO, Mr. Razaq Ahmed, emphasised the importance of industry–academia collaboration in building trust, testing ideas, and creating innovations with real impact. Drawing parallels with Google’s beginnings as a university research project, he expressed his vision for a future where groundbreaking ideas from academic institutions like Lagos Business School are implemented at scale in industry.
Professor Louis Nzegwu, Head of the Department of Operations, Marketing, and Information Systems at LBS, praised the collaboration and acknowledged Dr. Nsoedo’s pioneering efforts in making the elective a practice-based experience. He described the event as a strategic alignment that benefits both students and industry partners.
Dr. Chidozie Nsoedo, Faculty Lagos Business School
The highlight of the day was the student presentations. Out of four project teams, two groups Growwise and Healthwise were selected to share their product ideas developed using the frameworks they learned in class. Interestingly, some of their proposals overlapped with Cowrywise’s own internal discussions, which reaffirmed the relevance and depth of their work.
The day also included a tour of Cowrywise HQ, and a reflective Q&A session where Mr. Ahmed emphasised his vision for a future where groundbreaking ideas from academia are taken up by industry and implemented at scale, similar to the global story of companies like Google.
As the event concluded, both organisations shared a commitment to strengthening this collaboration. For Cowrywise, it was an opportunity to harness fresh perspectives from emerging business leaders. For Lagos Business School, it reaffirmed the school’s mission of equipping our students with hands-on experience that enables them to design solutions with real-world impact.
The CTI Practice-Based Innovation Project is only the beginning of a growing partnership between Lagos Business School and Cowrywise, setting a model for how academia and industry in Nigeria can work together to shape the future of innovation.
