Microsoft, in collaboration with Sterling Bank, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and TedPrime Hub have announced as winners of the digital solutions at the Microsoft Agro-Tech Hackathon.
The grand finale, which was held at Microsoft Africa Transformation Office, Lagos featured 10 solutions by youths from Benue, Enugu, Jos, Kaduna, Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Oyo and Sokoto states as well as Abuja.
Sell Harvest took the first position, taking home N2.5million, Farmsquare, which was second got N1.5million while Farmers’ Market, the third winner got N1 million offered by Sterling Bank.
The National Hackathon, which started in March, with the goal of designing digital solutions that bolster value chain in agriculture and connect farmers to users for the next decade was designed by Microsoft, Sterling Bank and NITDA.
The Microsoft Country Manager Nigeria and Ghana, Olatomiwa Williams, reiterated the position of Microsoft to harness youths’ potential to support the continent by raising over 40,000 home grown start-ups in critical sectors as envisioned by Microsoft Africa Transformation Office.
“It is Microsoft’s pleasure to onboard these creative youths as finalists on this occasion into the exclusive Microsoft Global Entrepreneurship Programme,’’ he said.
The Group Head, Agric & Solid Minerals Finance of Sterling Bank PLC, Dr. Olushola Obikanye, expressed his delight with the milestone in the agricultural sector through a digital transformation framework as one of the five pillars of bank’s approach to national development outside its core banking services.
Mr. Ahmad Bature said: ”The Director-General has approved N3,150,000 to support the remaining top seven finalists with exclusive access to NITDA-Deployed IT Hubs across the country, including the National Centre for AI and Robotics, Abuja and NITDA-coordinated programmes for start-ups post-Hackathon,”
Software Chasers expressed their delight on their winning and product development experience, Muhammad Mukhtar, Albany Muhammad, Sa’adu Abubakar said: “It has been an interesting journey with wide experience from varying degrees of virtual sessions, engagements and supports from TedPrime Hub to all teams that participated.’’
We see this as a milestone for Sell Harvest app in our next phase of the journey post Hackathon.’’
The Director of Administration and Global Partnerships of TedPrime Hub (Microsoft Partner), Odeogbola Ayodele, affirmed that the three-month hybrid Hackathon has been rewarding for over 2,000 youths selected from the pool across Nigeria through innovative virtual Skill-up sessions on Technology and Cloud Services, emerging issues on agricultural value chain process, start-up ecosystem and idea scaling, product testing and to the final round.