The Office for Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIIE), an affiliate
of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), has awarded
prizes for ICT innovation to remarkable National Youth Service Corp (NYSC)
members, reports ITRealms.
The winners who got grants for idea
development are Opaluwa John and Awulona Obinna with “MyDriver”, Temiloluwa
Adesina with “A School in A Box” and Gorah Ayodele and Aluko Fikunayomi with
“HIV Diagnosticare” just as consolation prizes and certificates of
participation were issued to 13 teams of corp members, shortlisted for the
final round of the competition.
ITRealms gathered that the
presentation held in Abuja saw the top five winners receiving the Idea
Development Grant to produce the prototype of their ideas.
Speaking at the occasion, Director-General,
NITDA, Mr. Peter Jack stressed the importance of ICT as an enabler for creating
jobs and wealth, stressing “The top two richest men in the world (Bill Gates
and Carlos Slim) derived their wealth from ICT. We are committed with new zeal
to accelerate 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.”
He expressed satisfaction at the
level of collaboration between NYSC and NITDA under the leadership of the
Director-General, NYSC, Brigadier-General Johnson Bamidele Olawumi.
The National Coordinator, OIIE, Mr. Bunmi
Okunowo said, “OIIE will leverage on its network of incubators to monitor,
support and encourage the corp members to build their ideas into prototype and
then begin to build a product out of it. The programme, which kicked off in
November 2015, is to attract corp members who have innovative ICT ideas or
ICT-driven businesses that can become a successful business within one to two
years.”
He also said that under this
programme, NITDA is fostering the creation of new ICT businesses by corp
members thereby reducing the high rate of unemployment amongst them. Emphasising
that this is a conveyor belt-type of programme for the corp members; supporting
them from an ideation to a prototype development to an earliest version of the
ICT product or service. We are doing all these for them during their service
year in partnership with our network of incubators, angel investors, talent
developers, NYSC skill acquisition and entrepreneurship development (SAED)
department of NYSC,” he said.
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Pix: L-R:
Camp
Director, FCT NYSC Orientation Camp, Mrs. Iruma Blessing, Opaluwa
Ojochogwu (corps member and joint first prize winner), Deputy Director,
Multi Stakeholders partnership, National Information Technology Development Agency [NITDA],
John Chima, Awulonu Stephen (corps member and joint first prize winner)
of N250,000 in the NITDA NYSC ICT
Innovation & Entrepreneurship Programme for Corp Member, Chinyere
Ekwe
and National Coordinator, Office of ICT Innovation& Entrepreneurship
of NITDA, Bunmi Okunowo during the presentation ceremony held at
the parade ground in Abuja on Wednesday
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