.jpg) |
| Group Photo from the WIPO IP and Women Business Summit at the United Nations House, Abuja. |
On March 17, 2026, I attended the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Intellectual Property and Women Business Summit at the United Nations House, Abuja.
The theme of this summit was, “The Audacity for Change: Women Leading Innovation and Creativity for Nigeria’s Economic Transformation.” and this was the fourth edition of the summit, even though it was my first.
Since 2025 when I was a Little Big Fund fellow, I had been thinking of ways to move Shades of Us from being a nonprofit to a social enterprise, especially as global funding for nonprofits were dwindling or refocused. As a result, I had registered for the WIPO Intellectual Property course set to begin this week. So, when I heard of this summit from Yecenu Sasetu, I knew I wanted to be there.
The Summit brought together women founders, legal experts, development actors, policymakers, diplomats, and ecosystem leaders to discuss one issue that Nigeria still does not take seriously enough: women are already building. The real problem is that our systems still do not protect, finance, or scale what women create.
That was the real conversation.
Not empowerment as performance.
Not inspiration without infrastructure.
Not another event where women are praised for resilience while institutions continue to underinvest in them.
This summit pushed a more useful truth: Innovation matters. Protected innovation matters more.
The summit theme worked because it named the actual problem.
Women do not lack ideas.
Women do not lack talent.
Women do not lack work ethic.
Women do not lack proof of concept.
Women lack:
access to capital
early intellectual property literacy
affordable legal protection
stronger commercialization pathways
and ecosystems built with women in mind.
That is the gap.
Women nurture ideas with care. But care is not enough. If the idea is meant to last, then the founder has to ask hard questions early:
What protects this?
What scales this?
What turns this into an asset?
What makes this sustainable?
What happens next?
That was the strongest thread across the day.
For ideas to be sustainable, we have to think beyond creation. You have to think about ownership, structure, protection, and growth.
***
The first session focused on creativity and asked participants to draw something outside the norm. The task was an inverted triangle and the one rule was to not draw an ice cream cone, which would have been the logical choice.
I drew a superhero in the sun: in my mind, showing the representation of women in their most powerful form. The room also had multiple creative ways that this prompt was imagined. From flower vases, to butterflies, to other forms of art, I was glad to see how beautiful all of the translations were.
For many women, that prompt is akin to the reality of entrepreneurship.
To build as a woman in Nigeria often means:
entering markets that were not designed for you
challenging assumptions about who belongs in leadership
and creating value in spaces that still underestimate you.
And somehow, we always manage to innovate and thrive.
.jpg) |
| Superhero Drawing by Ramatu Ada Ochekliye at the IP and Women Business Summit |
Then came Loveth Liberty delivered two poems.
The first focused on gender-based violence, especially domestic violence in marriage, and named the role of unequal spousal relationships in sustaining abuse.
The second addressed gender and social norms, and the women who rise above them.
One line stayed with me: “Hail the woman. The glory of her. The growing of her.”
You cannot have a serious conversation about women’s innovation and economic participation without acknowledging the conditions many women are working through: violence, control, unequal domestic expectations, social punishment for ambition, and systems that still demand silence.
Women do not innovate in a vacuum.
They innovate inside unequal structures.
Ambassadors from Cuba, the Philippines, Algeria, Trinidad and Tobago, Congo, and Tunisia were present.
This summit kept returning to one core point: Nigeria does not have a women’s ambition problem. Nigeria has a systems problem. Women are already creating value in creative industries, trade, law, finance, technology, media, enterprise development, and community-led innovation. What remains weak is the infrastructure around that value.
Opening Remarks and Key Note Address
 |
| Speakers at the 2026 WIPO IP and Women Business Summit |
She noted that a significant share of Nigerian households are led by women. Whether one uses 22% or a slightly different figure depending on source and year, the larger point stands:
Women are not marginal economic actors in Nigeria. Women are primary earners, household heads, business owners, informal market drivers, care workers, community stabilizers, and institutional leaders. Yet policy, finance, and enterprise support still often treat women as if they are supplementary participants in the economy. That disconnect remains one of the country’s biggest blind spots.
Ms. Elsie Attafuah, Resident Representative of UNDP Nigeria, placed the issue where it belongs: at the center of Africa’s future.
She said clearly that this conversation is critical. That framing matters because women’s economic participation still gets treated as a side agenda in too many spaces.
It is not a side agenda.
It is not charity.
It is not an inclusion bonus.
It is an economic strategy.
Her intervention linked women’s innovation to Africa’s digital transformation, the growth of the creative economy, industrial competitiveness, and long-term development outcomes.
She noted that the global creative economy supports over 50 million jobs, Nigeria’s creative sectors continue to shape economic opportunity, female-led startups still receive a fraction of available funding, and digitalization without inclusion deepens inequality instead of reducing it.
She also pushed a practical example that I appreciated: Aba and Kano. Her question was simple and strategic: if Aba is producing at scale and Kano has leather value chains, why are we not building stronger systems around women in those ecosystems?
That is the kind of question Nigeria needs more of.
Not an abstract celebration.
Not generic support for women.
Real questions about industrial clusters, value chains, ownership, competitiveness, and how intellectual property can increase market value.
She also made another important point: a woman’s art, code, and innovation must be treated as economic instruments, as well as creative expression.
Mr. Oluwatobilola Moody, Director of the WIPO Nigeria Office, made a useful distinction. He said people often misunderstand audacity as impudence or bad behavior. Women know that problem well.
Men get called bold.
Women get called difficult.
So his framing was useful: whether you are challenging a system publicly or building quietly in your own corner, you need audacity to create change.
He also made the IP case clearly:
IP preserves the integrity of the market space.
Closing the gender gap in IP is urgent.
Women-led SMEs already sit at the center of creativity and innovation.
We need to close the gap between women’s innovation and women’s formal ownership.
He cited a critical data point: women make up only 18% of listed inventors in WIPO published 2023 data on PCT applications. That tells us that women are still underrepresented in the formal systems that recognize and protect invention.
He also referenced an important policy milestone: Nigeria’s Federal Executive Council has approved the country’s first national Intellectual Property Policy and Strategy. This matters because IP cannot remain a niche legal issue. It has to become part of national economic infrastructure. WIPO’s Nigeria Office continues to position itself as a resource for this work through its Abuja office.
His call to action was practical:
engage WIPO,
learn the available resources,
and join IP for Her as a network and learning space.
Barr. Mrs. Ngozi Ekeoma, Group Managing Director of Nepal Group of Companies, brought one of the clearest founder stories of the day.
She shared that she was a teen mother and returned to school when she was pregnant with her third child. She started with petty trading and built that into a company with a presence in five countries.
She made several points that resonated with me:
The theme is timely because it rejects the constraints that history, gender, and social norms place on women.
She did not claim she invented something entirely new. She entered a male-dominated terrain and built anyway.
She started with what would support her family, but she scaled through audacity.
Small ideas, when connected, protected, and scaled, become engines of growth.
Women need the audacity to enter opportunities, even when men dominate the field.
If women can sell in Nigeria, they can scale globally.
Transformation does not happen in isolation. It happens when knowledge is shared.
She also made an important point about capital: we need to structure access to capital and debt for what it really is. This is because many conversations about women’s enterprise still stop at encouragement.
Encouragement is not financing.
Confidence is not collateral.
Training is not working capital.
If women are expected to scale, then the financing architecture has to change.
Ms. Olujoke Aliu, Co-Managing Partner at Aluko & Oyebode, delivered the keynote and one of the clearest arguments of the summit.
She said: “Audacity without protection becomes an easy target.” She also rejected the lazy language of “potential” that still gets used around Nigeria. Her point was simple: Nigeria’s women are not full of future promise. We are already building now. Too many women are already doing the work, generating value, creating jobs, building brands, and solving real problems, but we are still discussed as if we are emerging.
We are not emerging.
We are operating.
She also made the legal and business case plainly:
Secure IP early.
Do not wait until after launch.
Do not treat trademarks and IP as optional.
Without protection, your idea becomes easy to copy.
Without registered assets, financing conversations become harder.
Good ideas need systems and shields.
IP is a legal process. It is also risk management, leverage, asset protection, part of investment readiness.
Panel Discussions on Intellectual Property and Women’s Business
 |
| Some Moments at the WIPO IP and Women Business Summit |
Ms. Maupe made several practical points:
Innovation is not just about ideas.
Innovation becomes meaningful when you convert it into value and economic power.
Women often overthink before launching.
Capacity is rarely the issue.
The real issue is whether the right systems exist to unlock that capacity.
Women do not need endless reminders that they are capable.
Most women already know what we can do.
What many women need are:
better systems,
stronger networks,
clearer pathways,
and less punishment for taking risks.
She also made a point I agree with fully: patronize women’s businesses and made-in-Nigeria products. If we keep talking about women’s enterprise without changing purchasing behavior, then the rhetoric stays hollow.
Ms. Angela broke down the founder-side reality of IP. She shared that she wanted to start her own legal firm when she was older, but her mother encouraged her to start where she was. So, she started in her twenties. That story reinforced that audacity is often about acting before you feel fully ready.
Her core message was clear:
Be intentional about the commercialization of your idea.
As you build goodwill, you build brand equity.
IP should start early because value starts early.
Many founders delay IP because it is not mandatory, so the urgency does not feel obvious.
Different businesses need different protection strategies.
There is no one-size-fits-all answer for IP. A media brand, a social enterprise, a product company, a legal-tech startup, and a community platform all need different protection strategies. But all of them need to think about it.
Ms. Amaka said what more ecosystem spaces need to admit: training without capital is not enough.
She returned to Nigeria from a finance career abroad because she kept asking what it would take to drive rapid economic development here. When she looked for female-led businesses, people told her we barely existed. Instead of accepting that, she built systems to support women founders to access capital.
Her intervention was strong because it rejected the soft language that often surrounds women’s enterprise.
She said:
women-led businesses are underfunded and underappreciated
female founders need stronger networks and better education
women’s businesses are not social welfare
and leaving out half the population is like trying to fly a plane with one engine.
Exactly.
She also made a point that development actors need to hear repeatedly: No More Palliatives. Capacity building is necessary, but not sufficient. If women complete training and still cannot access capital, then the intervention remains incomplete.
She also offered one of the most honest founder reminders of the day: You will fail. Repeatedly. Get more comfortable with embarrassment.
That is the kind of honesty founders need.
Ms. Mariam showed what it looks like to build an ecosystem that actually accounts for women’s realities. She shared her own story of studying engineering in a male-dominated field where people told her women could not succeed. She proved them wrong, won recognition, and later built an innovation hub in Northern Nigeria.
What stood out was not just her personal story. It was her design choices. She said:
women gravitated to the hub because they saw a woman leading it
about 80% of participants in her programs are women
the hub uses many women facilitators
it provides crèche services
and it creates safe spaces that acknowledge life beyond technical training.
That is what inclusion looks like.
Not just inviting women in.
Designing for women’s participation.
If women carry disproportionate care work, face mobility constraints, or have fewer public opportunities to pitch and present, then support systems are not extras.
They are part of the operating model.
The Government Message Was Useful and Practical
Representatives from the Patents and Designs Registry at the Nigeria Intellectual Property Office (under the Federal Ministry of Industry Trade & Investment Commercial Law Department) made a useful intervention. They said:
Founders can walk into the office for guidance on the differences between patents, trademarks, and other forms of protection. Their office is located at Area 1, Old Federal Secretariat, Abuja, for those who live in Abuja.
founders should think about the future of the business and brand, not just the current form
and if patent costs are a barrier, the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) may offer support.
That kind of practical signposting matters.
A lot of founders do not avoid IP because they reject it.
They avoid it because it feels technical, expensive, and unclear.
So the more we demystify the process, the better.
What the Summit Meant to Me
I was going to ask some question that sits at the center of my own work. I even took time to write it down:
I have registered for the WIPO course, but I also run a social enterprise called Shades of Us. How do you protect a nonprofit helping women find their voice? Can this be done? Or do you protect only the business side? What can Shades of Us do on the business side of things? How can we innovate and protect this?
That question matters because many women-led organizations sit in the same tension: we are mission-driven, community-rooted, and impact-focused, but they still need stronger business architecture if they want to last.
And because I couldn't ask this, I went to research the answer for myself before I start and complete the WIPO course on Intellectual Property. Here is what I have learned.
A Nonprofit Can Protect Intellectual Property
A social enterprise or nonprofit can still protect its name, logo, tagline, program names, curricula, training frameworks, toolkits, campaign concepts, research products, media assets, and original content.Not everything will fall under the same IP category, but protection still matters.
Social Impact and Enterprise Discipline Must Coexist
Mission does not cancel the need for structure.
Since Shades of Us helps women find their voice, that work can still create protectable and scalable assets through signature programs, institutional workshops, licensed curricula, branded campaigns, storytelling products, content frameworks, community products, media collaborations, and research or insight products.
Investment Readiness Matters
This summit reinforced that Shades of Us needs to think not just about visibility, but about investment readiness.
That means asking:
What are the revenue-generating products?
What is proprietary?
What is repeatable?
What can be licensed?
What can be trademarked?
What outcomes strengthen our case?
What is donor-funded, and what can stand as an enterprise?
That is sustainability.
My Final Take
This summit confirmed something I already believe: Nigeria does not need women to become more capable. Nigeria needs to stop underbuilding around women’s existing capacity. Women are already creating, leading, building, earning, sustaining, organizing, and solving.
The gap is not women. The gap is in capital, protection, policy implementation, access, market pathways, and systems that still do not match the scale of women’s contribution.
If Nigeria is serious about economic transformation, then it has to move beyond celebrating women’s resilience. It has to:
protect women’s ideas
finance women’s businesses
build stronger commercialization pathways,
and treat women-led enterprise as economic infrastructure, not side programming.
- Women do not need more praise. We need stronger systems.
Innovation without protection leaves women exposed.
IP is not a luxury. It is part of the business strategy.
Training without capital keeps women stuck.
Women-led businesses are not social welfare. They are economic assets.
Support systems like childcare, safe spaces, and network access are part of innovation infrastructure.
Social enterprises like Shades of Us need to think seriously about IP, commercialization, and investment readiness.
Nigeria cannot talk about transformation while underinvesting in women’s capacity to build.
.jpg) |
| Shades of Us with the WIPO Nigeria Office Team at the IP and Women Business Summit at the UN House in Abuja |
No comments:
Post a Comment