N77.5 million in prize money was won at the end of a hackathon session at the fourth edition of the Zenith Tech Fair, with theme; “Future Forward 4.0: Embedded Finance, Cybersecurity; Growth Imperatives – The Impact of AI” which held on Thursday, November 21, 2024 in Lagos.
The prize was shared among 10 finalists who emerged from the 1,700 contestants. JumpnPass, a self-checkout technology, emerged the overall winner, taking home the grand prize of N25 million. This is in addition to a six-week mentorship, which will run from December 2024 to February 2025. The first runner-up, CreditChek, a credit and verification service provider, won N20 million and a mentorship programme, while the second runner-up, Salad Africa, won N15 million as well as a mentorship programme. Other finalists took home N2.5million each.
The Group Managing Director of Zenith Bank Plc, Adaora Umeoji, in her welcome address, expressed her appreciation to the bank’s chairman, Dr. Jim Ovia, for birthing the idea that led to the establishment of the tech fair initiative five years ago. She thanked him for his vision in utilising technology to revolutionise the world of business and banking.
Commenting on the Hackathon, she said, “This prestigious annual event was created to empower and nurture young fertile minds. We hope to produce the likes of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk from the Zenith Bank Hackathons in the nearest future. According to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, 70% of Nigeria’s population are youths which is an economic asset when properly harnessed. This is part of the reason why Zenith Bank is hosting this event to support the development of technology startups. Their success not only fosters innovation and growth in Nigeria, but it also plays a vital role in creating employment opportunities for our youth.”
She also stressed the importance of innovation and embedded finance in ensuring strong and enduring institutions. According to her, “It is paramount that we adapt and adopt technology to stay ahead of the curve. We have seen various cases of companies that failed because of their lack of innovation. It is quite obvious that when companies fail to innovate, they can easily be displaced. So, this is not the time to be orthodox; innovation should be a top priority for us.”
In his goodwill message, the Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu called for a global approach to doing business in the country. According to him, “What we need to do is to be able to enhance our product and services in order to compete in the world. We can’t continue to act local, we need to think global. Anything that we’re doing now, we need to be able to know that we are not just serving a local market, we actually want to serve the global market, and I’m glad that consistently, for the past four years, I have kept up with the Zenith Tech Fair.
I am sure 5.0 should be bigger and better than what we have today, but for us as a government, what we need to do is to continue to use platforms like this to reassure you of our readiness to provide an enabling environment for your ideas and innovative solutions.”
Described as a huge success by participants, the fair featured the launch of the bank’s digital wallet, EazyByZenith, which will help to support the bank’s retail and financial inclusion strategy. The fair also included presentations on the leading technological innovations that cut across different aspects of life, such as Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Risk Management, Compliance, Financial Intelligence, Cloud Computing and Communication Technologies, and others.