Veritas University, Abuja, has emerged overall winner of the 2023 Africa Innovation Challenge with a cash prize of 20,000 U.S. dollars.
The African Telecommunications Union (ATU)-led, ATU Africa Innovation Challenge, which was held in Nairobi, Kenya, with the theme: “Innovating for Digital Inclusion: Solutions to Bridge the Digital Divide in Africa.”
Also, Kenya’s Zetech University and Sierra Leone’s BlueCrest College also topped the competition emerging second and third runner up with the sum of $10,000 and $5,000.
A Software Engineering student of Veritas University, Daniel Inaju on behalf of other students said the school presented numerous projects at the competition.
Inaja said two out of many which were smart farm and PHP framework made Nigeria’s Veritas the overall winner of the challenge.
“The University was able to provide us with all the tools we need to start working on solving problems. The first problem we solved was looking at the farming issues in Nigeria and to automate the whole process, we came up with a smart farm, which does not only cover land farm but also fish farming and others.
The system we came up with had a biometric system and sensor that we used to detect salinity and the PH of the soil. We were able to put all these components together to come up with a smart farm.
We had sleepless nights and sometimes we slept in the lab just to get it right.”
The Challenge (2023 Africa Innovation Challenge) is a partnership of ATU, Intel, Huawei, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the GSMA. The competition sort to recognize ground-breaking solutions that address the digital environment and promote equitable access to telecommunications/ICTs services across Africa.
The practice is structured to inspire young tech enthusiasts to develop software-driven solutions that tackle community challenges and promote sustainability.
Utilizing a blend of emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), the Veritas Engineering Lab has catalysed numerous innovations.
