Ogbonnaya Bassey Wins ITU Telecom World 2015 Young Innovators Competition

Ogbonnaya Bassey has won the young innovators competition in the ITU Telecom World 2015 Young Innovators competition sponsored by Intel.

The Young Innovators Competition is an integral part of ITU Telecom World events and seeks gifted young entrepreneurs with ideas for innovative social enterprises, in response to a series of development challenges. The event brings together policy makers, regulators, industry leaders, SMEs and entrepreneurs to explore accelerating ICT innovations for social and economic development.

The winning entries, which were selected from 124 applications across 34 countries, will see Bassey attend the Telecom World 2015 event, a global ICT innovation platform for government, corporates and SMEs to be held between Monday, October 12 and Thursday, October 15 in Budapest, Hungary.

Bassey’s entry SolarKobo is an innovation that will provide solar power systems with zero-upfront financing in Nigeria as a cheaper, more reliable and cleaner electricity source than the private gasoline generators which are widely used to supplement the insufficient public electricity supply. The innovation will also allow small businesses and families to benefit from solar systems for relatively low monthly fees and will use single board devices for remote monitoring and customer payment systems.

With excitement, Ogbonnaya Bassey stated that:

“Most of the ingredients for our success exist. The need is critical, the demand for our solution is proven, the technology is tested and we have a sustainable model. We applied to the Young Innovators Competition to create awareness for our cause, get seed funding, investment, mentorship, and access to help from Intel in developing smarter systems.”