The Federal Government has awarded ₦200 million in grant funding to 14 exceptional women engineers to scale up innovations tackling some of Nigeria’s most urgent development challenges.
The initiative, jointly implemented by the Presidential Implementation Committee on Technology Transfer and the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure, represents the second phase of the Developing Engineering Leadership and Technology–Her (DELT-Her) programme.
Launched to reduce gender disparity in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, the programme is designed to empower women to lead transformative innovations that drive economic and social progress.
Speaking at the award ceremony in Abuja, the Chairman of PICTT, Dahiru Mohammed, described DELT-Her as a strategic effort to build a generation of women leaders in engineering and technology. He said the programme was conceived to bridge gender gaps in STEM while nurturing female-driven solutions to national challenges.
According to Mohammed, the initiative has grown remarkably since its inception. The maiden edition in 2024 funded six female engineers with ₦70.5 million, while the 2025 edition received 9,925 project proposals, up from just 120 applications the previous year. From this pool, fourteen innovators emerged, securing ₦200 million in total funding to develop technologies in agriculture, clean energy, healthcare, mobility, digital security, and environmental sustainability.
Beyond the grants, DELT-Her also invests in mentorship and early-stage STEM education. Mohammed noted that the programme’s outreach to schoolgirls expanded from 30 mentees in Abuja in 2024 to over 150 girls across Kwara, Niger, Plateau, Nasarawa, and the FCT in 2025. Through STEM bootcamps and fabrication kits, students developed creative prototypes such as biodiesel technology and solar-powered devices, igniting early interest in innovation.
Olamide Apejoye, the Project Coordinator of DELT-Her under NASENI and PICTT, attributed the initiative’s growth to rising awareness and government support for women in engineering. She said participation jumped from 150 applications to nearly 10,000 within a year, while the number of awardees increased from six to fourteen and funding from ₦17.5 million to ₦228 million.
Apejoye added that the initiative is not only closing gender gaps but also creating pathways for entrepreneurship and job creation. “The more prototypes these women develop, the more startups emerge, creating jobs, empowering communities, and driving economic growth,” she explained.
She encouraged aspiring female scientists and engineers to prepare for the next application round, noting that DELT-Her aims to support women innovators nationwide.
Introduced in 2024, DELT-Her forms part of the Federal Government’s broader strategy to strengthen technology transfer and local innovation capacity through NASENI and PICTT. It aligns with Nigeria’s National Science, Technology and Innovation Roadmap, which promotes inclusive participation in STEM.
With women making up less than 22 percent of Nigeria’s engineering workforce, initiatives like DELT-Her are viewed as essential to ensuring equitable access to opportunities that can boost productivity, support emerging businesses, and strengthen the country’s innovation ecosystem.
