As part of its efforts to
educate and enable Nigerians to reduce reliance on cash, Visa, the global
leader in payments, today announced the launch of the Cashless Lagos Hackathon
in partnership with Lagos Innovates, an initiative of the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), reports ITREALMS.
The three-day event, which
is scheduled to hold from 14 September until 16 September, will seek to digitize
payments for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and will be
delivered by Passion Incubator (www.passionincubator.ng).
The hackathon is open to software developers, programmers, coders, data
specialists and designers who have the capacity to create lasting technology
based financial solutions for MSMEs who are beneficiaries of LSETF.
Participants can access
lagosinnovates.ng/hackathon for details on the hackathon and have until 11 September
2018 to submit their applications. Selected applicants will meet with the MSMEs
on the first day of the hackathon to understand their pain points before the commencement
of the hackathon.
Through the hackathon,
participants are required to come up with solutions that would allow the business
owners to receive payments, make bulk purchases and keep inventory of their
transactions, thereby allowing access to bank loans and government grants.
Kemi Okusanya, Country
Manager, Visa West Africa said; “This partnership is part of our strategy to
help merchants become more financially responsible. What makes this hackathon
unique is that it encourages Nigerians to develop locally relevant solutions,
tailored for their specific environment and needs. We are always looking to
support innovative programmes that can better equip individuals to manage their
money more effectively, and these solutions will achieve that.”
Six teams will present
their ideas to the judging panel constituted of representatives from a cross
section of business and payments experts drawn from the public and private
sectors. Three finalists will be
selected based on impact, design, innovation, and customer validation. The
winning teams will receive ₦2million, ₦1million and ₦500,000 grants
respectively to be used for the development of the solutions, courtesy of Visa.
Commenting on the partnership,
the Executive Secretary LSETF, Akintunde Oyebode said; “We are pleased to have
Visa on board with us for the second edition of our Hackathon. Lagos State is
the economic capital of Nigeria and the home of Africa’s leading startups. Our
partnership with Visa puts us in a unique position to help uncover, support and
apply emerging technologies to some of the biggest transaction challenges faced
by entrepreneurs. We are excited by the possibility of leveraging technology,
especially digital channels to improve our current cash-based economy”.
Nenye Dom/GEE
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