Ten finalists yesterday emerged at Wema Bank’s Hackaholics 4.0. grand finale Pre-Pitch competition for over N50m cash prize, to boost innovation and technologies thereby creating a solution driven environment.

Hackaholics is Wema Bank’s youth & start-up-focused initiative, designed to provide a platform for young innovators with game-changing, tech-driven ideas and products, to bring their creative ideas to life, hone their skills and gain a competitive edge in the global technology and digital space.

The finalists include: Jane Agbaohwo for Team Ireti; Nelson Nelson-Atuonwu for Team Grip; Ebulue Ifeanyichukwu Henry for Team Raptor; Bonojo Adedayo for Team Pup Industries; Olukayode Fadairo for Team MumAlive, David Campbell for Team Naija Box; Oluwatimilehin Ogunme for Team Trakka, Tochukwu Ifeanyi for Team Outsidee; Damilare Ololade for University X and Gift Akobundu for Chao.

Speaking at the pitch tagged: ‘Hackaholics 4.0: Reimagine’, held in Wema Bank Headquarters in Marina, the financial institution’s Head of Innovation and emerging technologies, Solomon Ayodele stated that since the launch of Hackaholics in 2019, the initiative has toured the six geo-political zones in Nigeria Including 37 universities across Africa, sourcing creative undergraduate students, youth and start-ups, challenging them to innovate and create practical solutions to real-life problems, using technology.

According to him, at least 300,000 lives and businesses across the country have leveraged the visionary hackathon to make their big break into the tech industry and transform their passion for technology into sustainable sources of income, earning grants of over $200,000 from Wema Bank.

The Guardian observed that the participants pitched compelling creative ideas for impactful solutions including: Education, climate, gov tech, health, gender-based violence, financial inclusion, entertainment, fintech, insurance and civic tech.

He said: “Over the first few days, finalists received one-of-a-kind executive mentorship from renowned national and global technology corporations like Microsoft, KPMG, Samsung, Paystack, Flutterwave and Dream Space, among others. This equipped them with hands-on insight and prepare them for the Hackaholics 4.0 grand finale pre-pitch.

“Once again, Wema Bank raises the bar for holistic banking and financial services in Nigeria, with over N50m cash prize distributed across five categories.

“The winner gets N15m, 1st runner-up gets N10m, 2nd runner-up gets N7m, N5m is reserved for any female-led team to encourage more women to key into tech, while N22m is disbursed in University Stem endowment.”

One of the panel of judges at the event, Startup fund manager at Google, Femi Awoniyi said part of the things that were considered were how strong the team is, how innovative the solution is, how sound the business model is, and its propensity for scale.

“I’m a big fan of innovation and seeing how innovation can touch lives and defend businesses. The more we come up with things of this nature, these kinds of events, where we are creating a space where innovators can feel comfortable, while providing them with some capital should be encouraged.

“Today’s event is a catalyst and motivating factor for the participants to actually roll out their own solutions and help more people or more businesses becomes like a vicious cycle.

“We just listened to a couple of solutions in various sectors including health care, and we are seeing how we can help women and people that are facing things like breast cancer, and solve other real life problems that the people are facing everyday. If things like this can be encouraged, lots of lives will be touched.”

Startup advocate and one of the judges at the grand finale pre-pitc, Rosemond Phil-Odhihiwa, said that the judges are particular about the innovativeness of the pitched ideas. “So, we’re looking for ideas that are not only innovative, but also scalable, have a very good business strategy, a very good team and are able to expand and scale with as much assistance as possible.”