Nigerian Tech Firm Builds First Workforce Risk Intelligence Platform

OBI IGBOKWE, founder of WellNewMe, a Nigerian tech firm, has made a groundbreaking achievement in creating the country's first workforce risk intelligence platform. This platform is designed to help employers, insurers, and other stakeholders manage risks in the workplace, with a focus on health data.

The single sharpest fact in this story is that WellNewMe has created a workforce risk intelligence platform that serves four distinct constituencies: employees, employers, HR teams, brokers, and insurers. This platform is a unique solution that tackles the complexities of workforce health risk in Nigeria, a country with limited data and regulations.

WellNewMe's platform operates across the UK and Nigeria simultaneously, requiring the firm to navigate different regulatory environments, payments landscapes, and vocabularies for discussing workplace health. On the Nigerian side, the firm had to be mindful of NDPR compliance, integrate local payment rails, and geo-detect and localise content for Nigerian HR directors.

A key challenge in building the platform was treating credibility, data integrity, and market specificity as core product features, rather than afterthoughts. WellNewMe's team had to resist the temptation to over-engineer and simplify features that added complexity without decision value.

One of the most significant decisions the team made was to use the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale, a validated and less stigmatising instrument, in place of a more clinically loaded mental health assessment. This decision is crucial in building trust with HR directors and employees.

WellNewMe's experience in building the workforce risk intelligence platform has been a learning curve, with the company having to confront the thin local evidence base in Nigeria. The firm has had to rely on international data and research, such as a 2019 survey of over 6,800 Nigerian employees on workplace mental health, conducted with Dennis Ashley Medical Clinic.

The recognition of WellNewMe as a finalist for the Royal Academy of Engineering Africa Prize was a validation of the company's efforts, but it has been the unglamorous work, such as auditing their own website, that has taught them valuable lessons.

The lesson from this experience is that building infrastructure-grade intelligence for African and UK workforces requires treating credibility, data integrity, and market specificity as core product features, not afterthoughts.