The jury has been constituted for the World Child Innovation Awards Nigeria.
The jury includes eminent personalities such as Dr Aminat Showole, Adem Karaduman, Peter Oluka and Olajide Ademola Ajayi.
The award is the brainchild of Turkey’s Elvan Groups Founder, Mustafa Kadiroglu, an entrepreneur and Innovator
The group forged an alliance with Africa’s foremost youth capacity development Not for Profit Organisation, Coderina after finding information about the groups activities online.
The project , targeted at a demographic or 14 year old and under, aims to empower the youth of Africa in the area of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship to help them realize their full potential while also creating for them an opportunity to gain global and economic mobility.
It is believed that the award would serve to use financial rewards and recognition as positive reinforcement for abilities of creative youths and young innovators.
This should foster a culture of “I can make things” within the teeming African youth population.
The program will be launched in Nigeria on the 24th of February and the first awards events would hold in November 2018.
It is also expected that the program roll-out to other African countries will happen in 2019 to cater for other African countries with Nigeria as the central hub.
Meet The Jury
The jury includes eminent personalities such as:
Dr. Aminat A. Showole
She is the Head of Department (HOD) Computer Science Department University of Abuja. Her research interests include Open Source Development, Open Government, Open Data, Big-data and Software Engineering Processes.
Dr. Showole is the Director of Engagement & Advocacy for Coderina. Her passions include empowerment and capacity building for the youth and women. She was the co-coordinator of the first ever FIRST® LEGO® League Tournament hosted by the University of Abuja.
She is a stakeholder of the National Internet Government Forum. She was a key Resource person at the 2015 Women Leaders Forum.
Her interests include entrepreneurship development, coaching, mentoring, research and development. All of which would be brought to bear on the jury of the Child Innovation Awards.
Adem Karaduman
Adem Karaduman graduated from Istanbul Kültür University in Istanbul. He studied Industrial Engineering and Business Administration.
He is the export manager of Africa at Elvan Group that is one of the best leading companywithin the Confectionery sector all over the World.
He is a firm believer that doing business should not be focused solely on profit but also on doing Social good.
Adem is very passionate about Africa and Africans and believes owing to the shared heritage between Turkey, his native country and some parts of Africa, doing corporate social responsibility would contribute in no small measure in the area of youth empowerment.
His passion is fueled by the words of Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”.
He is committed to helping African youth realize and fulfil their potential through the World Child Innovation Awards.
Olajide Ademola Ajayi
Ademola is an IT Manager at SAP Ireland. Passionate about Ed-Tech, creativity and innovation, He is the founder of CODERINA, an NGO working to promote and strengthen coding and STEM skills acquisition among African students and teachers.
He is involved in several STEM /Coding initiatives such as: EU Code week, CoderDojo and FIRST LEGO® League, Africa Code Week. Olajide is one of the lead mentors on the Coderina University Challenge (COUCH) and he has successfully hosted this program across Africa, in partnership with some African Universities e.g., most recently at the University of Abuja and National University of Lesotho.
He is a jury on the Ireland FLL Championship panel and coordinates similar activities in Nigeria and Ghana.
He holds a Masters degree in Computer Science as well as a PMI membership & Graduate Certificate in Innovation in Social Enterprise from the Dublin City University. Olajide is on the global jury of the World Child Innovation Awards
Oluka, Peter Ikenna
Peter Oluka (@peterolukai) is a practicing ICT Journalist; Tecnopreneur, PublicSpeaker, Speech Writer, amongst other Media Relations interests.
Currently, the Editor, TechEconomy.ng; prior to which he worked as Senior Correspondent, nigeriacommunicationsweek.com.ng Peter’s quest for Developmental Journalism is exceptional.
Peter started his mainstream (print) journalism in 2010 with the Nigerian NewsDirectNewspaper based in Ogun State. His penchant interest and stunts registered NewsDirect’s presence in the league of Property & Environment and Labour pious media outfits.
Peter was a Nigeria Youth Merit Award (NYMA) nominee 2013. He is an Associate Member of the Institute of Information Management (IIM-Africa) and was awarded the Records and Information Management Best ICT Reporter of the Year by the Institute of Information Management-Africa (IIM-Africa) in year 2014.
As a rising gem in the Nigerian Online journalism space, peter is currently .ng domain name Brand Ambassador (2015 till date).
Peter is a certified Customer Relations Management Personnel by the Nesburg School of Business and Management (NESBG-Nigeria), Africa’s foremost Persuasion School of Business based in South Africa (2015).
He obtained PGD (Mass Communications) from NOUN in 2015; HND (Mass Communication) from the Institute of Management and Technology, IMT, Enugu in 2008.
He is an alumnus of the School of Media and Communications (SMC) Pan Atlantic University (PAU) (since 2016).
He was recognized by a Body of Computer Professionals at the Nigeria Technology Merit Awards (NITMA) 2017.
The program will be launched in Nigeria on the 24th of February and the first awards events would hold in November 2018.
For more information on how to register to participate please visit here.
