Team Native led by Somto Momah has emerged winner of the 2020 Good Governance Hackathon Competition clinching the star prize of $10,000.
Other winners include: Team Sight, which came second with $6,000 prize, while Team Healthcare for All came third with $4,000.
The event, which held in Lagos was sponsored by the World Bank, the European Union, United Kingdom Aid (UKAID) KOICA, SEEFOR Project and Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation in collaboration with Co Creative Hub.
The Good Governance Hackathon Competition 2020 tagged “Data for Good Governance” was organised as part of the 2020 Social Media Week.
The focus was on the ability of participants to manipulate and analyse available geospatial data into useful information that can be transformed into government policies to impact on the citizenry.
Speaking on the event, the World Bank Task Team Leader (TTL) of SEEFOR Project, Mr. Parminder Brar, said the competition was geared at providing opportunities for youths who are ready to solve problems.
In the words of Mr. Parminder Brar:
“Nigeria is full of talented young people who want to solve the problem of accountability, service delivery and they really want to move ahead.”
Mr. Parminder Brar expressed confidence in the youths who within eight days were able to use available data as platform on which solutions to societal challenges can be found.
He commended all participants for their efforts and assured them of the support of the organisers.
Explaining the activities that culminated into choosing three teams that emerged winners, the World Bank Task Team Leader (TTL) said 79 teams indicated interest to participate, 22 were short-listed and eight made it to the final.
Speaking on the lessons learnt from the event, the National Project Coordinator of SEEFOR Project, Dr. Greg Onu, described the competition “as very good innovation and a way of empowering the youths to be involved in governance, using the ICT platform.”
According to him, it is a way of engaging the youth and the feedback mechanism is very impressive because it allows project implementers to get feed-back from the citizens about the performance of their projects.
On his assessment of the event, one of the judges, Dr. Zakari Lawan, the M&E Director and GRID3, Ministry of Budget and National Planning said the programme gave him hope for the future of the youths.
According to Dr. Zakari Lawan:
“It gives me a lot of hope that Nigeria has all the potentials to be great with what I have seen today, with the skills and capacity that was exhibited by the young participants, who were just engaged into this particular process, I think it is great and I believe if this young men are given the opportunity and exposure, I think they’re world class materials.”
