By Stanley Iwuoha
Technology-based solution provider, InfraMappers, emerged as the overall winner at the 2024 Digital Nigeria Innovation Challenge (DNIC) Innovation Day. The event was held at the E-Government Training Centre, Public Service Institute of Nigeria (PSIN), Kubwa, Abuja.
The DNIC Innovation Day marked the grand finale of the challenge, showcasing groundbreaking digital mapping solutions designed to address Nigeria’s critical infrastructural challenges. Six finalist teams presented their innovative projects to a panel of judges and a live audience.
InfraMappers secured the top prize of N5 million by developing a solution that utilizes artificial intelligence to aid decision-makers in distributing healthcare facilities across the country.
The second and third-place winners received N2.5 million each. The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) awarded a total of N16 million to the winners.
Meanwhile, a local company, GridCode , also supported the participants after using their solution in mapping of infrastructure across the country and tell better story.
The first prize was given N2.5 million, 1.5 million went to the second and the third position had 1 million.
The Director General of NITDA, Andullahi Inuwa Kashifu, said the pitch competition aligned with the five key pillars of NITDA which is aimed at growing technology and nurturing young talents into productive ventures and solution for national problems.
The DG, who was represented by Mr. Olawumi Oladejo, explained that the agency is working to achieve data sovereignty for Nigeria and pledged sustained support the innovators.
He said the competition started months ago at the state level, culminating into regional and to National level, where over 1500 innovators participated before the six finalists.
“With right ideas we give you incubation hubs, nets, where Angel Investors. we are working on 3 states and by end of the year it will be 9 with recreation points. It is an opportunity to showcase talents we have in Nigeria.
“We are working on having sovereignty about data by bringing the hosts here, AWS, Microsoft Assured, Alibaba, etc. If we don’t, most of what we are going to do we will not have control over it. that is one thing we must have at the back of our mind so that we are going to have data sovereignty.
” We are prepares to support innovators to see how you can be brightened, you need investors in your business.”
The National Coordinator, Office for Nigerian Digital Innovation, ONDI,
Victoria Fagbemi, said the innovation Challenge is an SPV of the National Information Technology Development Agency.
She said, “We’re focused on supporting the innovation and technology ecosystem, and this is one of the initiatives through which NITDA and the Office for Nigerian Digital Innovation, ONDI, supports.
“Today we had the first NITDA Digital Innovation Challenge, where we put together teams from across the country, 36 states plus FCT, with an aim to solve problems and gather data around Nigeria’s infrastructure in education, healthcare, and social infrastructure in general.
“Under our strategic roadmap and action plan, one of the things we want to do is provide support to startups and connect them with MDAs so that solutions like this can strengthen the work we do as government and public sector. So we’re really excited about this first phase of the journey.
“We’ll continue to provide this support as we go forward, have more innovation challenges throughout the course of next year. And we look forward to engaging the public more to get out more solutions that will lead to a prosperous Nigeria.”
On mechanism to monitor what the winners are going to do after this main ceremony, Fagbemi said, ” this is just the beginning of the journey. One of the things we have in our roadmap is to make connections between startups and MDAs. During presentation, a lot of them said they got their data from the Ministry of Health, the registry, and now they have gone beyond just data and they have created interactive maps that can also be beneficial to the ministry.
“Our work is to now ensure that there is a proper handshake so that the solution can be a lot more robust. We will continue providing them support, not just from ONDI, but also from NITDA and the ministry perspective, so that this data set will now become prevalent across the country. We want Nigeria to prosper, so it is our responsibility to ensure that people have access to the right relevant authorities.”
In terms of funding, she said, “The government is very interested in listening to the people. Most times there is a very large disconnect. This is one of the ways that governments can engage young people and they can come up with solutions.
In terms of private sector support, she said, “this is a testament that we have local companies who are willing to also support the innovation ecosystem. At the end of the day, what we are looking for is government, private and academia participation and collaboration which this program is a testament.
The GridCode CEO, Adefola Amoo said
Africa is losing $1bn worth of value annually to talent flight due to trust deficit in the continent.
He called for home grown solution to African problems and close the gap for rapid economic growth. He warned that Africa must cease to be mere source of human capital but player in the revolution.
