Some members of Nigeria’s National Service Corps (NYSC) have bagged innovation prizes awarded by the Office for ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIIE), a subsidiary under National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
At a ceremony held in Abuja, the ‘corpers’ were honored for excelling in NITDA’s inaugural Idea Sprint under its multi-year ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship Programme.
The corps members include Opaluwa John and Awulona Obinna that developed the application calked ‘MyDriver’, Temiloluwa Adesina with ‘A School in A Box’ and Gorah Ayodele and Aluko Fikunayomi with ‘HIV Diagnosticare’. Consolation prizes and certificates of participation were issued to 13 teams of corp members who were shortlisted for the final round of the competition.
The top winners received cash prizes as idea development grants to produce the prototype of the ideas they have committed to NITDA OIIE.
Director General of NITDA, Peter Jack said: “The top two richest men in the world, Bill Gates and Carlos Slim, derived their wealth from Information and Communications Technology (ICT). We are committed with new zeal to accelerate Information Technology (IT) development across the country, especially ICT innovation and entrepreneurship. To spearhead the innovation, we established the Office for ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship. We are pleased at the pace of work and programs emerging from this subsidiary.”
