By Vera Wisdom-Bassey
Fourteen-year-old Goodluck Aroloye, a SS2 student of Testimony College, Lagos, has won the 2024 Animation Hub competition and went home with a cash prize of N300,000.
He came first in the just concluded Inter-School Animation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and described his victory as an event he never dreamt of winning but as faith would have it he won.
Speaking after the competition, he stated, “I feel great and I am honoured to win this competition. I thank those that encouraged me that, I can do it. He said during the animation training, he produced new cartoons, movies and hoped to do better.
Aroloye assured that he would take Africa to the top, adding, “I believe I will take Africa to the top in this Animation and the A1 thing.”
The Animation Hub training was held in Lagos with several schools in attendance, among them were Liberty College, Murphy Tonica High School, Awoyaya, Ajah, Debbylian High School Ikotun, AOS Montessori, Capital Road, God’s Brain Olufelade School, Mushin among others. Their teachers accompanied the students to the animation hub competition.
Animation Hub partnered FCMB, Quedup and Flip and Tech to empower students across the country, especially those in Lagos. The programme offers hands-on training in various aspects of animation, including drawing, modeling, sculpting, texturing, rigging, dancing and rendering.
The students gained valuable skills and were mentored by experts during the training. The seven days online learning animation training was introduced to young learners to inspire them to acquire skills.
The organizers disclosed that about 100 students applied for the training and three winners emerged.
Speaking at the closing ceremony, the organiser, Adetunwase Adenle disclosed that the only way students can be helped is to impact on them thyrough education and tell their own story.
“Animation is quite intensive, very expensive and the manpower is very expensive and not the tools itself. If the manpower is in large quantities, which we have in Nigeria, we are safe.”