The office for ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIIE), a subsidiary under National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), in order to deepen its work of supporting innovations in the ecosystem in Nigeria has awarded prizes for ICT innovation to outstanding National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) members in Abuja who have excelled in its inaugural Idea Sprint under its multi-year ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship Programme.
Established in line with NITDA Act 2007 and National ICT Policy, the OIIE is setup to nurture, cultivate and expand the ICT innovation and entrepreneurship in Nigeria.
Among the winners at the inaugural edition of the programme who got cash prizes as idea development grants are Opaluwa John and Awulona Obinna with “MyDriver”, Temiloluwa Adesina with “A School in A Box” and Gorah Ayodele and Aluko Fikunayomi with “HIV Diagnosticare”. Consolation prizes and certificates of participation were issued to 13 teams of corp members who were shortlisted for the final round of the competition.
However, the top five winners that received the Idea Development Grant would use the funds to produce the prototype of the ideas they have committed to NITDA OIIE. Besides, some NYSC members that presented creative ideas to OIIE would observe their one-year mandatory service with OIIE in Abuja, as OIIE has sent a formal request to the management of the NYSC to that effect.
Addressing the audience, the Director General of NITDA, Mr. Peter Jack stressed the importance of ICT as an enabler for creating jobs and wealth.
“The top two richest men in the world (Bill Gates and Carlos Slim) derived their wealth from ICT. We are committed with new zeal to accelerate IT development across the country, especially ICT innovation and entrepreneurship. To spearhead the innovation, we established the Office for ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship. We are pleased at the pace of work and programmes emerging from this subsidiary,” DG NITDA said.
Speaking at the just concluded ICT Idea Sprint at the Abuja National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) orientation camp in Kubwa, the National Coordinator of OIIE, Bunmi Okunowo said, “OIIE will leverage on its network of incubators to monitor, support and encourage the corp members to build their ideas into prototype and then begin to build a product out of it. The programme, which kicked off in November 2015, is to attract corp members who have innovative ICT ideas or ICT-driven businesses that can become a successful business within one to two years”.
“Under this programme, we are fostering the creation of new ICT businesses by corp members thereby reducing the high rate of unemployment amongst them. This is a conveyor belt-type of program for the corp members; supporting them from an ideation to a prototype development to an earliest version of the ICT product or service. We are doing all these for them during their service year in partnership with our network of incubators, angel investors, talent developers, NYSC skill acquisition and entrepreneurship development (SAED) department of NYSC,” Okunowo said.
NYSC Camp Director, Mrs. Blessing Iruma, representing the State Coordinator, commended NITDA for the initiative and advised the agency to sustain the programme for the benefit of the country’s development. He assured that the scheme would move to Lagos, Port Harcourt, Enugu and Kano and other parts of the country in 2016 and beyond. “We want to create, grow and deepen ICT innovation in the country. We know ICT
