BTNG Hackathon 2019: Day 1
Theme: Curbing the Effect of Brain-Drain in Emerging Economies
What do you do on a sunny and beautiful Saturday morning in London?
The answer for 93 people turns out to be – head down to Wilson street – the home of Microsoft Reactor in London.
The Reactor was the venue for BTNG Hackathon 2019 where we gathered to hack solutions to mitigate the impact of brain-drain on emerging economies using Nigeria as an example. Our core areas of attention were Education, Finance, Health, and Agriculture.
The day’s activities kicked off with BTNG co-founder Tolu sharing BTNG’s journey to become the largest tech community for Nigerian diaspora in the U.K.
And next up on stage was Ozo & Uche also co-founders of BTNG, who gave an introduction to the reality of brain-drain in Nigeria which provided the needed context and examples of its impact.
Alecia Esson led a Design Thinking presentation. Alecia’s talk was timely and valuable for attendees as it provided actionable tips for their intended solutions and hacks.
And just before the break, Rufaro Chiriseri and Nyasha Gazi spoke about K.U.K Alliance’s mission and impact in Zimbabwe.
Mentors and Judges
There was a quick introduction from the mentors and judges.
Uche also had a breakout section with the judges and mentors to ensure hackers got optimum support.
Idea Pitching
After the talks, we had a ten minutes break and then it was idea pitching time! This was the opportunity for everyone to get a chance to speak for exactly 1 minute spelling out their intended problem statement.
We had over a dozen pitches.
Break
Time check at this point was 1pm. And we now broke off for lunch where attendees had the opportunity to network, unwind, and helped themselves to some delicious slices of pizza.
Teams
After the break, the hacking continued with over twelve teams as follows:
Team name: Kobo
Problem statement: The difficulty of female entrepreneurs getting micro loans and technical support.
Team name: Spora
Problem statement: Reducing graduate unemployment by providing access to opportunities in other countries.
Team name: Bridge the gap
Problem statement: Providing mentorships to students in Nigeria. Initially focused on the tech industry.
Team name: Hero Fabric
Problem Statement: Connecting ICT students in Nigeria with Tech professionals in the diaspora.
Team Name: Team X
Problem Statement: Remittance platform with a USP that users get the option to round up on and donate to a charity while making a payment.
Team name: Nigerian Health Service (NHS)
Problem Statement: Improve access for people to connect to existing health services.
Team Name: The Arbiters of Trust
Problem Statement: Solving graduate unemployment in Africa and starting with Nigeria and Ghana with outsourced opportunities.
Team Name: Off-grid Solar
Problem Statement: Providing sustainable reliable electricity to rural areas by through a crowdfunding platform.
Team name: Community Green Finger
Problem Statement: to enable and empower local communities in southern Nigeria using aquaponics to support local families through food production and employment
Team Name: Wazobia Health Network
Problem Statement: Providing health-workers in the diaspora to knowledge opportunities in their home communities.
Team Name: Brain Gain (BG)
Problem Statement: Providing remittances opportunities by building a platform to enable diaspora invest directly in projects.
Team Name: Faastrac
Problem Statement: Providing farmers access to low cost farming equipment solutions.
Team: Giving Back
Problem Statement: Lack of visibility on how chairty funds are being used due to opacity and administrative processing with blockchain.
That’s all day 1 action and excitement. See you tomorrow for day 2!
