This year’s Digital Nigeria Hackathon, scheduled to be held on 24th of October 2023 at the International Conference Centre (ICC), Abuja is targeted at promoting local content development, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has announced.
Announcing this in a statement issued and signed by Mrs. Hadiza Umar, Head of Corporate Affairs and External Relations, NITDA said the Hackathon will promote ideas that will be developed into products and homegrown solutions.
Other targeted areas include leveraging young talented Nigerians to produce innovative ideas and products to solve socioeconomic problems and guide tech entrepreneurship to provide solutions to existing challenges across various sectors in Nigeria.
“NITDA Digital Nigeria Hackathon 2023 is targeted at achieving the under-listed objectives:
- To match tech entrepreneurs with the appropriate public institution right from idea generation.
- Exportation of digital services for economic expansion.
- To activate fresh thinking by connecting innovators from diverse backgrounds and sectors.,” the statement reads.
NITDA is organizing the Hackathon through its subsidiary, the Office for Nigerian Digital Innovation (ONDI), in partnership with the Innovation Support Network (ISN), as part of the activities for this year’s Digital Nigeria International Conference and Exhibition.
The Digital Nigeria International Conference and Exhibition is the flagship awareness programme in the Digital Economy sector. This year’s event with the theme: “Harnessing Digital Technologies for Job Creation, Inclusive Economic Growth, and Sustainability”, is rebranded to expand the scope in line with the core objectives of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS).
Participating startup founders will be allowed to express creativity within their business case and encouraged to develop unique solutions with an emphasis on using the latest technology such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud, Big data, Virtual blockchain, Quantum computing, Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR)and Reality (VR) to come up with clearly defined ideas and prototypes solutions on e-Digital Literacy & Inclusion; e-Creative Media; e-Government Services; e-Subsidy Removal/Mobility; and e- Financial Inclusion Technology.
Consequently, finalists will pitch their ideas and teams at the event and a winner will receive the Digital Nigeria Innovation Prize. After the hackathon, the winning team will be provided the support to continue to build their solution into a commercial venture. Participants are, therefore, expected to identify relevant problem areas and propose solutions to address them.
