The
Edo ICT Agency in collaboration with the state’s ministry of Agriculture,
SabiHub, the only technology hub in Edo state and Open Knowledge Foundation
hosted the first Hackathon (Technology Competition) on government Opendata
scheme in West African region, reports ITRealms.
Tagged,
Agric Data Hackaton 2015, in commemoration of the world opendata day, on
February 21st, 2015, participants were drawn from various universities
and tech hubs across the country to focused on the Ministry of
Agriculture, Edo State, analyzing the challenges in the sector and
therefore proffer technology solutions, using the available agriculture
datasets on Edo State opendata portal (www.data.edostate.gov.ng) for the competition.
Mrs
Yemi Keri, the Managing Director of the ICT Agency explained that Edo Opendata
provides a platform for citizen engagement and participation in governance,
noting that that “ Our achievements are not just for the government but
for all to tap into freely hence our data is licensed under the creative common
license that enables the free use and reuse of datasets on the portal ,
providing innovative flexibility of the use of data.”
Hon.
Abdul Oroh, the state Commissioner of Agriculture in his remarks challenged the
participants to leveraged the available dataset on agriculture to find simple
solutions to some of the challenges facing agricultural sector in the state.
According
to him, some of the challenges he expected the participants to provide
solutions to include, obsolete skills and out-dated technology; inadequate and
inaccurate baseline data coupled with poor record keeping as well as lack of
qualified personnel collect data from the field; inadequate agro-services to
meet the needs of farmers; poor accessibility to credits by farmers; inadequate
land; low income and exploitation of farmers by middlemen; non availability of
structured market for agricultural products and inadequate storage infrastructure.
Other
challenges he mentioned include, low range of enlightenment campaign, inability
to prioritize areas of comparative advantage, absence of access roads and lack
of processing plants for most of the farm produce.
Emeka
Okoye, Africa’s leading technoprenuer and opendata consultant took the
participant through some technicalities in data wrangling and data hack. He
harped on the importance of using data wrangling to acquire better
visualizations and interactive Apps which could improves decision making
in governance.
Also,
Ayo Rotibi a former world bank consultant and opendata expert motivated the
young minds present on the use of latest technologies like Rasberry to
achieving more work professionally with less stress.
In
his remarks, Mr Seun Onigbinde the co-ordinator of BudgIT, the most successful
privately held open data scheme in Africa spoke on pitching and presentation of
Ideas. He enlightened the participants on how to use available data to solve
common problems, using BudgIT as a case study. He also highlighted
some challenges and how they can be surmounted.
Participants
were grouped in fives, and the hack spanned for two hours after a presentation
was done by representatives from each team for five minutes each after which
winners emerged.
Prices
and certificates were awarded to the winners and they expressed gratitude to
the Ministry of Agric, sabi Hub, Edo State ICT Agency and Open Knowledge
foundation for making the event a success with a promise to develop the apps
into a working solution for the sector and hoped likes of this will continue in
the state.
+Remmy Nweke (ITRealms) +Edo Openchallenge
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