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Do you think Lagos is the Most Innovative City in the World?
The city of Lagos is known for many things. As the most populous city in the country, Lagos is the commercial hub and serves as a meeting point for people from different cultures, religion, profession and more. Lagos is a very diverse city. But do you think innovation is one of the things the city is known for?
Lagos, along with 24 other cities has been nominated for the Most Innovative City of the Year Award.
The Award which is being organised by Wall Street Journal and sponsored by Citigroup in partnership with Urban Land Institute recognizes places where people, passion and ingenuity are shaping efforts to build sustainable and liveable cities. According to the organizers, the competition tests the ability of the nominated cities to re-imagine themselves.
On the Wall Street Journal website, some of the credit given to Lagos include
- Under Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola, Lagos instituted a science and technology-based Innovation Advisory Council.
- The city’s urban population has grown 6% to 8% annually in recent years, ballooning to 18 million people in 2010.
- Lagos’s GDP is $33 billion, and accounts for roughly 25% of Nigeria’s overall GDP.
- Frontier Strategy Group named Lagos one of the “Big 5” cities in Africa, projecting that it will soon outpace Johannesburg in business opportunities.
- The city is Nigeria’s “gate to the sea,” accounting for 80% of national seaport activity.
Aside from Lagos, Cape Town, South Africa is the only other African city on the list. Other cities are Sao Paulo, Medellin, London, Shenzhen, Hamburg, Berlin, Raleigh-Durham, Vancouver, Boston, Atlanta, New York, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Copenhagen, Toronto, San Francisco, Bratislava, Tel Aviv, Chicago, Vienna and Seattle.
The competition is now in its second phase. Out of the 25 cities, three will make the final shortlist and these cities will be announced at the Wall Street Journal Magazine Innovator of the Year Awards on October 18.
Voting would then resume on October 19 to determine the winning city which will be announced in the Wall Street Journal magazine early next year.
So, compared to other cities on the list, do you think Lagos has what it takes to be called the most innovative city in the world?
