The Lagos State Government has advised youths to embrace technology through internet as the world is no more analog driven.
The government is of the opinion that through internet ,much innovations that would bring the country out of poverty and redeem the youths from joblessness as they would become employers of labour rather than looking for who to employ them after graduation from schools.
Lagos State Honorable Commissioner for Science and Technology i, Mr. Hakeem Popoola Fahm, gave the advice last week Wednesday, at the closing ceremony of the first ever Media and Marketing Hackathon in Lagos. The event was put together by MarkHack 1.0; a consortium of media and marketing professionals.
Mr. Fahm, said that Governor; Babajide Sanwo-Olu, was passionately committed to harnessing the power of technology in every sector of the state economy as evident in the current infrastructural development of the State.
He said that he was quite impressed with the Hackathon, which held at the D’Podium event centre, Ikeja Lagos, “technology is everywhere in contemporary times. For us to really benefit from technology, we need to be innovative. We need to take what we are doing now, see how we can improve on it.”
“If you can look around Lagos, what Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, is doing with infrastructure is evident. The government is putting in quite a number of docks that will allow fibre optic cable to spread all over the state.
“What this will do for us, is to create a super highway for moving data, information which will propel Lagos to a newer height as the amount of investment coming into the state is unprecedented.”
The commissioner while commending the organisers of the event which centred on the application of technology in media and marketing, disclosed that Lagos State would be at the forefront of technology.
“This will benefit not only the citizens but the entire nation. We have invested in technology in education, schools, public service, public health and so on. We will continue to make the facilities available in educational institutions, health care services and even in transportation.”
In an interview with journalists, one of the organisers of the event, Mr. Victor Gbenga Afolabi, the Chief Executive Officer of Eko Innovation Centre and GDM Marketing Group said the consortium of 65 media and marketing professionals chosen to go by the title MarkHack came together as stakeholders in the Media and Marketing industry to co-create a disruption which was inevitably brought about by technological advancement in contemporary times.
“We foresaw that if we continue to deliver value to our clients and consumers in the media and market landscape, we might likely allow the anticipated disruption to happen to us. So we chose to create the anticipated disruption by ourselves. Over a hundred different organisations came together to co-create the disruption and this co-creation gave birth to what is called MarkHack.”
“I am not the convener of the event but the curator of MarkHack because we (Eko Innovation Centre and GDM Marketing Group) conceived the idea, but we brought together experts in the industry across all sectoral groups, clients agencies, media buyers, professionals, technology experts, venture capitalists, policy makers, regulators of advertising council.
“We came together to create the MarkHack which is seen as a project that took us three months to create. It has come with its application today. What we are doing is like giving back to society after some years in the industry. For us at Eko Innovation Centre and GDM Marketing Group, this project is our way of giving back to the society after benefitting from the industry.”
While Eko Innovation Centre is the technology enterprise development outfit, GDM Group is the marketing and media innovation company; both founded by Mr. Victor Afolabi.
The Wednesday hackathon witnessed the participation of no fewer than eight start ups whose pitching were adjudged by a collection of experienced jurors. The first price of 10,000 USD went to Livebic; an inventor in new online payment solution.
The Keynote speaker at the event; Mr. Idorenyen (Idy) Enang giving an overview of the marketing and media industry highlighted certain elements that would ensure the survival of operators particularly in this technology driven fast paced world.
Among other things, Enang who is the Chief Executive Officer of Corporate Shepherds Limited and Chairman of Council, National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN) hinted that ethics is the overall key element for any business to grow, emphasising that “what we do and how we do it determines how far a business can go.”
Speaking also at the event, the Special Adviser to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Technology; Mr. Olatubusun Alake said that due to the deep interest the Lagos State Government has in technological innovation, about 50 Research & Development initiatives in higher institutions in the state were being supported by the government.
Eko Innovation Centre, GDM Group Organise First Media Hackathon tagged “MarkHack 1.0”
After the competition which was attended by people of all walks of life, LiveBIc, which comprised of Shadrach Akao and Ernest Ogbanefe ,emerged the overall winners from a list of 10 finalists involved in the pitch at the finals of the hackathon. LiveBIc won the star prize of $10,000 for developing a new platform for content creators to market and deliver their content.
Sprayme clinched the second position and $4,000 prize money for innovating a new way for social gifting and content monetization; Reelbuzz emerged the third winner with $3,000 for creating an intuitive platform that helps brands connect and command higher brand loyalty; Innovators took the fourth position as well as $2,000 prize money for directing the leads for businesses and turning them to paying customers and Monify Cookies, fifth position with $1,000 for developing a browser tool that provides its users the ability to block all unsolicited ads and earn money from allowed ads.
The winners and runners-up will also get working space at Eko Innovation Centre, while all ten (10) finalists will have access to join the EIC accelerator programme and GITEX Global pitch event in Dubai.
Recall, that the best 10 teams with the most viable concepts went head-to-head at the finale for the $20,000 prize pool and an acceleration programme with up to $50K equity investment to get their products ready for the market among other benefits.
