The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) will on Monday commence its FutureMakers Virtual Hackathon and Pitch Sessions, with 60 young innovators selected from the six geopolitical zones of the country. The five-day virtual hackathon, organised by the NASENI Innovation Hub, will run from August 17 to 21, while the pitch sessions will hold from August 24 to 26. The 60 shortlisted innovators, selected from thousands of entries received for the competition, will develop working solutions to challenge statements specific to their respective geopolitical zones. They will be supported by technical facilitators and mentors during the virtual build sprint, with participants whose solutions advance moving on to the pitch sessions. During the pitch sessions, the successful innovators will present their solutions to a panel of judges and industry leaders. The sessions will also be streamed live on YouTube and Facebook. Winners from each of the six zones will receive N1.5 million, N1 million and N500,000 for first, second and third places respectively. The top six winners from the zones will subsequently pitch their solutions at the NASENI Invention Fest, where they will compete for a N5 million prize, an international study tour and fully funded scholarships to two leading Nigerian universities. The Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NASENI, Khalil Suleiman Halilu, said the programme was designed to translate months of outreach and selection into practical solutions and viable ventures. “FutureMakers Week is the culminating moment of the programme cycle, where months of outreach and selection turn into built solutions and backed ventures. Sixty innovators, six zones, six challenges: the programme is deliberately national in reach and local in problem definition,” he said. The Hub Manager, NASENI Innovation Hub, Busola Beckley Perez-Folayan, said the initiative was designed as a long-term talent pipeline rather than a one-off competition. She said winners would gain access to SparkLab, mentorship, training and scholarship pathways, in addition to the N5 million prize available at the final stage. “The virtual format widens access to innovators beyond Abuja and Lagos. This is a working demonstration of government-backed innovation infrastructure delivering for young Nigerians,” she said. The agency said the programme was part of its mandate to move Nigeria from a consumer economy to a producer economy, noting that its zone-by-zone approach enables participants to develop solutions based on challenges in their immediate environments. FutureMakers by NASENI is being implemented in collaboration with academic and ecosystem partners, including MIVA Open University and the African University of Science and Technology (AUST), Abuja. The NASENI Innovation Hub is also a member of the AfriLabs network. The agency said the initiative identifies, equips and supports early-stage Nigerian innovators aged 5 to 16 to develop technology-driven solutions to development challenges in their regions and connects them to NASENI’s engineering, prototyping and commercialisation infrastructure.
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