The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, has reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to supporting young innovators to design solutions that tackle societal challenges and drive national transformation.
Abdullahi made this commitment at the Grand Finale of the NITDA Innovation Challenge 1.0 held in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
The innovation challenge, with the theme “Idea to Impact,” brought together National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members and interns serving at NITDA to showcase how technology can be used to solve real problems and improve lives.
The DG emphasised that NITDA is not just a government agency but an innovation partner and launchpad for the next generation of digital entrepreneurs.
“And we know it’s not easy to get jobs after school. So we are creating an opportunity for you so that before you finish your service, you can establish your own startup, and we’ll give you an opportunity to use NITDA as a test bed to test your ideas.”
He added, “You presented five ideas on smart performance tracking, smart ID card, digital brand, that’s what we call a knowledge management system, job placement, and certificate verification. We need all these ideas. We’ve been spending money at NITDA on this without getting the expected results.”
“So I want you all to go and establish your startup, to work with the team. We will work with you. We’ll pay you to develop those ideas, and you can use NITDA as a test bed,” he concluded.
Christian Chijioke, from the winning Team X (COPA), thanked NITDA for supporting the initiative and explained how his team’s solutions will be beneficial in solving real-time problems.
“Our solution is to match Youth Corps members to jobs. This came from our own struggle here at NITDA. It’s quite difficult to get a posting. Like, once you are posted by NYSC, most times you have to take your posting letter to the organisation, and then go back to check whether or not you’ve been accepted.
“So, we came up with this platform that matches Youth Corps members to jobs based on their skill sets. And beyond that, our platform also makes it possible for Youth Corps members to track the application to see whether or not they have been accepted.”
“And I’d like to thank the Director General for this opportunity, and we look forward to implementing our solution and taking it out there for Youth Corps members to use.”
Team Sentinel (Smart ID), Smart Track Innovators, Team Trivergent, Team TechLogs (SafeCheck), Team Big Tech (Digital Brainbox), and Team SRAPture completed the top seven in that order.
Each team received prizes and startup funding as part of NITDA’s commitment to empowering young innovators and shaping Nigeria’s digital future.