By Stanley Iwuoha
Two medical students of the University of Ibadan (UI), Oyo State, and their Computer Science counterpart emerged winner of the maiden hackathon organised by the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) in Abuja.
The results of the hackathon were announced at the grand finale anniversary dinner and awards night to mark the end of 2024 Data Privacy Week held by the NDPC in Abuja between Jan. 28 and Feb. 4.
The hackathon, which took place on Friday, featured three teams from University of Abuja, Nile University and University of Ibadan.
According to the Commission, the hackathon is targeted at students with an aimed to finding indigenous solutions that can help in the implementation of the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA).
Recall that the Nigeria Data Protection Bill was signed on June 12, 2023, by President Bola Tinubu, and the act established the powers of the commission to ensuring compliance of organisations, protection of citizens’ data to avoid breaches, among other concerns.
Meanwhile, the hackathon began on Jan. 8 with over 100 applications from tertiary institutions across the country, from where three teams emerged, including Nile University students, Team Cognito, University of Abuja students, Team Liitee and UI students, Team Privalon.
Each of the teams during the hackathon on Friday presented their pitches on how their solutions could address the need of NDPA implementation.
Team Privalon presented a solution `ChainVote’, which was meant to address the challenges of identity management and discrepancies in the voting system.
Team Privalon eventually won the hackathon with a prize award of N750,000, while Nile University students came second with N500,000 cash award and University of Abuja students emerged third with N250,000.
The Team Lead for Team Privalon, Mr Halleluyah Oludele, said they were motivated on working on the solution and were delighted at winning.
Not undermining the efforts of other teams, Oludele commended the federal government initiative, noting that youths in the country are highly skilled and have the capacity to proffer ideas on national issues.
He said their solution could be applied in any sector which could help in decentralising data for easy service delivery.
The students were offered free membership into ISACA, Abuja chapter, where they would receive mentorship on how to develop further their ideas.
