Octave Analytics has emerged the overall winner of the Zenith Bank inaugural hackathon ‘Zenathon’.
Zenith Tech Fair, which held on November 27, 2019, at the Landmark Event Centre in Lagos, convened over 2,000 participants and 50 exhibitors, including Mercedes Benz, Microsoft and IBM, who showcased leading technology innovation across different spheres of life. The tech conference was themed “Future Forward”.
Zenith Bank gave the 10 finalists of its inaugural hackathon up to $77,000 (₦28 million) grant funding, making it the highest prize-money of any bank-organized hackathon in Nigeria.
The hackathon, which was nicknamed Zenathon, ran for two days.
Out of the many startups that participated, 10 startups were selected to pitch at the maiden edition of the Zenith Tech Fair for the grand prize of ₦10 million.
Data analytics company, Octave Analytics won the grand prize. Logistics firm, Neohaul Technologies and Agro-investment marketplace, reQuid Technologies received ₦6 million and ₦5 million, respectively, as the first and second runners-up.
In addition to the ₦21 million grant funding, the top three finalists would also be participating in Seedstars’ six-month Investment Readiness Programme that will hold next year [2020].
The remaining seven finalists were given ₦1 million each.
Experts or mentors—those who are not part of any of the startups but worked with them during the two-day Zenathon as a growth expert, business expert or engineer—were also compensated. Each startup had at least one expert assigned to it during the two-day Zenathon. Octave’s experts received ₦70,000; Neohaul’s experts, ₦50,000; and reQuid’s experts received ₦30,000.
The Zenathon focused on four thematic areas: Future of banking, future of retail, future of customer relationship and future of security.
In the future of banking dock, there are: Xcard and reQuid Technologies. The future of retail category has Alerzo, Excrow Inc., Payonhold, Neohaul Technologies and Nairapacket; Termii, Octave Analytics and Qview.ai can be categorised as customer relationship solutions.
Some great insights were shared during the panel session and by the keynote speakers, including Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor, Country Director of Google Nigeria; Akin Banuso, Country Manager of Microsoft Nigeria; Dipo Faulkner, Country General Manager for IBM Nigeria; and Anthony Etim, who represented Eric Zhang, Managing Director of Huawei Technologies Nigeria.
