Cavista Nigeria, a technology firm providing tech services and solutions for companies across the world has commenced a campus hackathon tour across Universities in Nigeria in a bid to bridge the gap caused by the recent mass migration of tech talents out of the country.

The tech company which has presence in India, The Phillipines and USA came to Nigeria 3 years ago and despite its short stay in the country, is the current largest employer of software engineers and developers in Nigeria with over 350 software developers and engineers on its payroll.

A Hackathon is a social coding event that brings computer programmers and other interested people together to improve upon or build a new software program that makes life better.

Speaking during its maiden campus hackathon event at Babcock University at Ogun State over the weekend, Bamidele Odufuye, Vice president and Country director for Cavista Nigeria said in its hunt for talents, it has discovered there is a need to grow the talent, thereby getting them ready for the market place.

“There is no better place to grow these talents than in the higher institutions where there are bright minds.

“One of the ways to help them shape their talents and grow their skills is to organise events like these where they are tasked to create, under a short period, what can be marketable,” Odufuye said.

Tech solutions that were built by the students during the 26-hour Hackathon competition in Babacock University includes drug alert system, fake drug detector, e-commerce blockchain solution, hypertension detector, online medical support, waste recycling tech solution and donor tech solution.

In a way to encourage the participating knowledge enthusiast students, Cavista will be awarding winners of the Hackathon competition with cash prices and providing them with mentors to help them grow their skills.

Dele Odufuye explained that the end game is not just the reward but to motivate the students to create something within a short period that is marketable, adding that what they have done is to perfect their products and make them market worthy.

He said Cavista is the largest employer to engineers working under the same roof and we will still take more.

“Cavista is in the business of hiring quality talents that can work with its global clients,” he said.

According to Odufuye, with a strong belief that talents exist everywhere, Cavista has been hiring talents all over the country, as it has hired more than 350 programmers in the short history of Cavista in Nigeria and 1,000 all over the world.

“We are not just doing this in Babcock but we are doing this in many other universities. We will partner with several other universities including Covenant University,” the country director said.

We will partner with private institutes and tech institutes across the country. We have a partnership with the Ekiti State government. These are all in a bid to grow talents for the marketplace and give back to our community.”

Ajiboye Boluwatife, a member of the winning group at Babcock University said he and the members of his group came together hoping to participate and have the experience. He said they created a drug alert system that won them the grand prize.

“Our idea was a drug alert system. Basically, we noticed a problem after carrying out research in the health sector. We noticed that a good number of people often forget to take their drugs at the right time.

“So, we built a tech reminder system that takes into consideration all age groups except the children. The reminder system reminds people of the time to take their drugs and it makes prescription easier for doctors,” Boluwatife said.

He said the next step will be to build up on the tech solution, add more features and make it an enterprise.

The group that came third was awarded N300 thousand; second, N500 thousand and the winning group got N1 million.