Hackathon Winners get N450, 000 @ Calabar Incubation Centre

Senator Liyel Imoke, governor, Cross River state has reiterated the state’s commitment to the development of ICT by fully supporting the Information Technology Developers Entrepreneurship Accelerator (iDEA) initiative.

Imoke, also pointed out that some of the richest people in the world are the ICT savvy, citing Bill Gates, Steve Job and Mark Zuckerberg as examples.

The Cross River state governor spoke at the launch of the second pilot centre of iDEA at the Tinapa Knowledge City in Calabar.

Also speaking at the event, Mr. Adedotun Sulaiman, chairman Governing Board of iDEA, said: “our goal is to catalyse the ICT industry by helping Nigerian ICT entrepreneurs create successful businesses; support the interactions between software entrepreneur and their partners; and act as hubs of innovation that support the development and maturity of a local software economy.

“We are setting up the first venture capital fund in conjunction with private equity investors to be solely focused on ICT businesses,” Sulaiman added.

The event was kicked off with the Hackathon competition - a 42-hour App building  competition in which the 27 contestants who came from different parts of the country to participate were grouped into a teams of 2 and 3 (a total of 10 teams)to build their choice of software application within 42 hours.

The Hackathon competition was facilitated by the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON).

Team Two emerged winners, and were presented with N450, 000 cash prizeand 3 Nokia Lumia phones during the launch of the centre on Friday, August 2.

The team developed a software App called Le-Media – an App that allows you to combine learning with entertainment.

Dignitaries at the launch event included Imoke; Mr. Efiok Essien Cobham, his deputy; Okmobola Johnson, minister of Communications Technology who was represented by Dr. Asiru Daura, acting director-general of NITDA; Nkoyo Toyo, a member of the Information Technology Committee of the House of Representatives, Sulaiman; Ibrahim Mori Baba, postmaster general of the Federation; Engr. Chinedu Okoli, managing director of High-Tech Data Systems (iDEA Implementation Consultants); Mrs Helen Anatogu, iDEA Programme manager, as well as Chris Uwaje, president, Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON).

In his address, Dr. Daura observed that the centre in Tinapa was a convergence of three visions - the Ministry of Communications Technology, the State Government and NITDA. He observed that as the implementing agency, NITDA is committed to the success of the centre and has backed up that commitment through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with iDEA.

iDEA is an acronym for Information Technology Developers Entrepreneurship Accelerator. Its purpose is to help Nigerian entrepreneurs create successful businesses. It provides essential support to entrepreneurs to build software skills.

iDEA is the brainchild of Johnson and is being implemented by the National Information Technology Agency, through its consultants, High-Tech Data Systems Ltd.