July 10, 2020

TechWomen Fellow and Mentor Collaborate on COVID-19 Hackathon

Recently, Binta Moustapha, a 2014 TechWomen fellow of Nigeria, and Dr. Jeannice Fairrer Samani, a TechWomen mentor, teamed up for Hack the Crisis Nigeria, a three-day hackathon for COVID-19 innovation.The effort was a part of Hack the Crisis, a network of global hackathons that aim to harness the power of technology to solve leading crises. Binta’s campaign, 100 Women in Tech Nigeria -- which amplifies women leaders in Nigeria -- organized the event. 

Over the course of the hackathon, 50 teams addressed four challenge areas, applying their innovations to healthcare, communications and more. In addition to sourcing tech solutions to COVID-19 challenges, Binta prioritized creating awareness in indigenous languages such as Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo.

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Dr. Jeannice, the chair and founder of Fifth Wave STEaM Education initiative, delivered a virtual session on best practices in pitching. In her presentation, Dr. Jeannice took the hackathon teams step-by-step through a successful pitching process, beginning with identifying a problem and pitching how their idea plans to solve it. “Introduce your company’s product or service as the ultimate solution to these problems,” she said. Dr. Jeannice also spoke about the importance of identifying a target market, finding an advantage over competitors and laying out a future roadmap. 

At the conclusion of the hackathon, three teams were given a cash award sponsored by NITDA, Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency, as well as access to consulting services to further develop their ideas.

This story comes courtesy of our TechWomen colleagues. It was originally posted on the TechWomen blog.