At the award ceremony held on Thursday, November 6, 2025, in Abuja, NASENI’s Executive Vice Chairman, Mr. Khalil Suleiman Halilu, said the initiative provides a platform for women to transform bold engineering ideas into real-world solutions that drive national progress.
Halilu disclosed that out of 9,925 project proposals submitted, 14 women engineers were selected to receive grants to advance innovations in key sectors such as agriculture, clean energy, health, mobility, digital security, and environmental sustainability.
He noted that the first edition of DELT-Her in 2024 empowered six female engineers with N70.5 million in funding, adding that this year’s edition saw a surge in participation, from 120 applications in 2024 to nearly 10,000 in 2025.
“NASENI believes that gender inclusion is not charity but strategy. Every woman empowered through DELT-Her represents new capacity for the nation’s technology ecosystem,” Halilu said, emphasizing the agency’s commitment to fostering human-centred innovation.
The NASENI boss added that the mentorship arm of the programme expanded from 30 schoolgirls in the FCT in 2024 to over 150 girls across Kwara, Niger, Plateau, Nasarawa, and the FCT in 2025 through bootcamps and fabrication training.
Chairman of PICTT, Dr. Mohammed Dahiru, commended the awardees for their ingenuity and resilience, noting that DELT-Her continues to bridge gender gaps in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).
Other dignitaries at the event, including Senate Committee Chairman on NASENI, Senator Ezenwa Francis Onyewuchi, and Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Doris Udoka, lauded NASENI and PICTT for promoting local innovation, gender inclusion, and Nigeria’s technological advancement.
