ALAT by Wema, Nigeria’s first digital bank recently announced the 2022 edition of its Hackathon programme tagged #Hackaholics 3.0 – Building The Future.
The acceleration, which is aimed at helping tech enthusiasts and innovators scale and gain entrance into the market, is targeted at young Nigerians who will put their coding, product curation, and pitching skills to work, by solving interesting problems.
With 3 pitch centres planned across the country, Hackaholics 3.0 will kick off at the Federal University of Technology, Akure in Ondo state between Tuesday the 15th and Thursday the 17th of February 2022.
The 3-day Bootcamp will see participants exposed to the creative, technical and business sides of innovation in specially curated sessions that seasoned innovators, venture capitalists and the ALAT by Wema team will lead.
In what promises to be a fun-filled and enlightening event, the FUTA edition of Hackaholics will witness side attractions such as musical performances. There will also be a raffle draw where students stand a chance to win various cash prizes and ALAT merch.
Hackaholics 3.0 is Wema Bank’s contribution to building the nation through tech, by developing and launching a community of techpreneurs made up of young people while also supporting youth enterprise.
The hackathon is aimed at solving some specific challenges across multiple sectors, focusing broadly on the limitless possibilities in the future of technology, like NFTs, Web 3.0, Metaverse, Blockchain, AR, VR, AI, IoT.
The tech pitch event will give young Nigerians the enabling environment in solving societal issues across Financial Inclusion, Health, Entertainment, lending, mSME, while they stand the chance to win a total prize of five million Naira.
Speaking on the initiative, Solomon Ayodele, the Head of Innovation, Wema Bank, said, “The tech space is filled with emerging technological advances that hold so many possibilities and we want to key into that by raising the next generation of tech giants who will use their creativity and talent to change the course of society. We truly believe our aspirations as an organisation align with the desires of a lot of young Nigerians in creating and implementing disruptive technology solutions. ”
The registration process for Hackathon 3.0 began on February 5, 2022, and has been extended to the 5th of March, 2022 because of the large number of entries received in the first few days of registration and requests from the public.
After FUTA, the ALAT innovation train will head to UNIBEN and UNILAG, where innovators, creative thinkers, developers, and coding experts will also connect and show off their skills while opening themselves up to a world of greater possibilities. 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners at this 3rd edition will walk home with two million Naira, 1.5 million Naira, and one million Naira, respectively.
