Nigerian technology company, SoftAlliance, has strengthened its support for Nigeria’s emerging technology ecosystem by providing young innovators at the sixth edition of Thrive in Tech with free access to its locally hosted cloud platform, SoftKloud.
The sixth edition of Thrive in Tech, held in Lagos, brought together young technology enthusiasts, developers and innovators focused on using technology to create solutions to real-world challenges.
As part of its support for the programme, SoftAlliance offered every attendee one month of free access to SoftKloud, giving participants the opportunity to build, test and develop their technology solutions without the immediate cost of cloud infrastructure.
Speaking with journalists at the event, Babatunde Ojumu, Director, Technical Solutions at SoftAlliance, said the company’s participation was driven by the need to equip young Nigerians with the tools required to turn their ideas into practical solutions.
“We need to empower young people to solve our problems. This programme is designed to check out their creativity, let them come out and see what they can do and how they can solve our problems,” Ojumu said.
He noted that Africa’s large youthful population presents an opportunity to unlock innovations capable of competing on the global stage when young people have access to the right technology infrastructure.
According to Ojumu, the objective is not only to encourage young people to develop ideas but also to provide them with the infrastructure needed to turn those ideas into viable products.
“If they are good enough, those solutions can even go global. We can start to build our own local unicorns,” he said.
Ojumu explained that SoftKloud was developed to make cloud infrastructure more accessible to individuals and businesses, particularly those seeking to build and host technology solutions locally.
He said SoftAlliance has traditionally provided locally hosted technology infrastructure as part of its enterprise solutions, but SoftKloud represents a shift towards making these capabilities available through a self-service model.
“Over the years, we have been doing a lot of these types of projects. We usually do it enterprise to enterprise, but we are now trying to empower people to be able to use a self-service model, going online and being able to buy the solutions themselves,” he said.
SoftKloud enables users to access and purchase technology resources online for building and hosting their solutions locally. This provides an alternative for innovators who may otherwise depend entirely on foreign cloud platforms and incur foreign exchange costs.
Following the one-month free subscription provided through the Thrive in Tech initiative, users can continue with SoftKloud plans starting from ₦10,000 per month.
Ojumu said the affordability of the platform was deliberate, particularly for young developers and startups that may not have the financial capacity to sustain expensive cloud infrastructure while developing their ideas.
Looking beyond the event, Ojumu said SoftAlliance expects young innovators to move from developing ideas to creating solutions capable of generating meaningful impact.
“Our expectation is solutions. We expect creativity. We expect disruptions,” he said.
He described young people as a major source of unconventional thinking, noting that some technologies that have transformed the world emerged from ideas that initially appeared outside the mainstream.
Referencing the rapid growth of artificial intelligence, Ojumu said the next major technological breakthrough could emerge from an African innovator.
“Maybe the next one is going to start from here. Something after will take over from AI. Maybe this is where it is going to start from,” he said.
SoftAlliance’s participation at Thrive in Tech reinforces its broader commitment to supporting local innovation and creating opportunities for young Nigerians to develop technology solutions without being held back by infrastructure costs.
Through initiatives such as the one-month free SoftKloud subscription and affordable monthly plans, the company is positioning its cloud infrastructure as a resource for innovators seeking to build locally, develop affordably and take their solutions to the global market.
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