Nigeria based startup UTRUCKIT.NG, with expertise in the provision of logistic solution has received the United Nations World Summit Award in the SMART SETTLEMENTS & URBANIZATION category for 2017 at the World Summit Awards Winners’ Global Congress, held in Vienna, Austrialia March 20-22 2018.
Programos Foundation, Nigeria’s coordinating civil society organization for the United Nations based World Summit Awards, which selects and promotes local digital innovation with high impact on improving society, disclosed in a statement.
According to the statement signed by Mr Amos Emmanuel, Chief Software Architect/Chairman, Programos Software Group and Founder, Programos Foundation, UTRUCKIT.NG was given the award and recognition in front of United Nations representatives, ICT ministries, country contingents, public and private sector stakeholders.
Amos said the Nigerian innovator emerged a winner among 40 other winners from 23 countries, selected from over 400 nominations from 180 countries. “As the Nigerian representative and a promoter of the World Summit Award Nigeria, we congratulate UTRUCKIT.NG for receiving this award in the SMART SETTLEMENTS & URBANIZATION category and making Nigeria proud ,” he stated.
He noted that a win in World Summit Award by Nigerian startups is a display of resilience of Nigerians, especially the youths to compete favourably among their peers globally, when given the opportunity, the right exposure and due patronage.
UTRUCKIT.NG, pioneered by Mr. Tom Roberts, enables cargo owners convey their cargo more safely and smartly the way they want from the comfort of their homes just by using the TRUCKIT.NG app. The startup has therefore moved innovation from the laboratory trials to actually impacting on the Nigerian society, protecting businesses and bringing about huge cost-savings to bottomlines in response to smart settlement and urbanization.
The World Summit Awards (WSA) promote social entrepreneurship in the digital sector worldwide to honour the most innovative digital applications and solutions, as a contribution to the United Nations “World Summit on the Information Society.”
This year’s World Summit Global Congress, saw social entrepreneurs from more than 100 countries coming together to share and discuss how ICTs and interactive applications can have a positive and sustainable impact on society. Other highlights asides thought-leadership discussions and inspiring keynotes about digital media, technology for social change and solutions for global networks, include SDG Luncheon at the United Nations Headquarters in Vienna, Business Matching Hackathon, WSA After Party by a German innovation network Umdasch Group.
Giving regular participation of Nigeria and the prominent presence on the global innovation map by Nigerian innovators in the last decade, the Vienna Winners’ Congress saw approvals from many other African country representatives, led by Morocco, Uganda, Madagascar, Cameroon and Sudan to support a vote of the Nigerian expert, Amos Emmanuel to drive some volunteering leadership process with WSA office in Austria and National experts in a way that catalyzes, continental interactivity of the African innovation ecosystem, increased participation of more African innovations to the WSA global competition under the name ‘WSA Africa’.
Call for participation in current edition of the WSA 2018 is announced at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd9kjAEBYRK-QG9RNYV8k3z3_9BgtJfQ_zaIWE7XCNaBwNhng/viewform