NOGTECH 2020: 5 Take Aways from the Event

On Thursday, December 10, 2020, NOGTECH held its Demo Day which showcased innovative solutions from 5 startups who had recently won $10,000 each during the programmes’ hackathon.

In June 2020, NOGTECH opened to see the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) call on startups to apply for its $50,000 grants.

5 Startups emerged as winners of $10,000 each to continue improving their solution.

Programmes Director of NOGTECH, Francisca Chiedu shared 5 things that stood out during the whole process of  NOGECH 2020.

Best entries into the hackathon came from Universities

Over and over again, students have taken education and creativity beyond the four walls of a classroom to the mainstream. A lot of innovations solutions today originated from undergraduates.

And here at NOGTECH, it became even more glaring.

It’s exciting to see young individuals Ting the bull by the horns and restructuring their minds to see beyond blue or white-collar jobs.

According to Stears Busines, nit up to 10% have the capacity to pursue innovative solutions.

This goes a long way to show that if we invest more in education we will produce more innovators.

Reflection of social impact on all solutions

When we set the call for applications, we had hundreds of solutions providing range of services while improving the supply chain to reduce energy loss among others.

Across all, the social spin directly or indirectly embedded in the solutions was glaring. It does count for something, that the startups are thinking about purpose beyond profit.

If we continue to identify and support these breeds of entrepreneurs, who place humanity at the core of their solution, there is no telling the impact we can achieve in very few years to come.

The readiness of the ecosystem

It’s obvious that Nigeria is ripe for disruption. Coupled with the readiness of the of players in the ecosystem to support, mentor and groom upcoming innovators has heightened.

And that’s a good thing, its what we need to scale the tech scene and further penetrate other sectors.

Throughout the programme, we saw relentless mentors pour out their knowledge, lessons and expertise acquired over decades.

Solutions are applicable in different sectors

This is also what makes the selected startups dynamic. At the onset of the screening process and the hackathon, judges kept an eye out on scalable solutions.

While the primary use case is within the oil and gas industry, the flexibility of adoption across multiple industries is key to understanding solutions that are very scalable.

Market linkages and investment leads

Beyond monetary investment, NOGTECH 2020 Incubation Programme was designed to serve as a launchpad for the winning startups to pioneer their market entries.

The NOGTECH 2020 Incubation team and the leadership of NCDMB took it upon themselves, to support the startups in accessing organizations to pilot their products and close early deals.

Many of the teams didn’t see this possibility at the onset. However, in the end, they are beyond satisfied that the outcome of this initiative has strategically positioned them for global market entry.

Featured Image: Cross-section of attendees at NOGTECH 2020 Demo Day

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