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 tech competition, 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 kicked off at the Federal University of Technology, Akure in Ondo state on Tuesday, 15th February 2022 and ended on the 17th of February 2022. During the 3-day Bootcamp, the bank exposed participants to the creative, technical, and business sides of innovation in specially curated sessions with seasoned innovators, venture capitalists and the ALAT by Wema team.
Through a rigorous selection process, ten finalists emerged from the scores of young Nigerians that came to pitch their brilliant tech ideas. The fun-filled and enlightening event also involved side attractions such as musical performances and a raffle draw where some students won cash prizes and an iPhone 12.
Some of the participants playing board games
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.
A cross-section of attendees at the Continuing Education Auditorium, FUTA
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 aligns 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 respectively in the coming days. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners during this 3rd edition will walk home with two million Naira, 1.5 million Naira, and one million Naira, respectively.
Interested applicants can apply here or on the Wema Bank website.