Nigeria’s leading innovation Bank wraps up premier hackathon.
Wema Bank’s maiden hackathon, Hackaholics, announced its winners at a grand nale on
Sunday, March 31, 2019. The event, hosted at Codeville, Wema Bank’s innovation lab,
brought together some of the brightest minds in the country to be part of various activities
including keynote addresses, panel discussions and training programs for the participants by
Osmosis.
Hackaholics brought together startups and young tech professionals to brainstorm,
strategize and create solutions to the problems presented. Solutions were screened by a
team of judges who announced the winner at the grand nale.
Among a number of groundbreaking solutions from the 20 participating teams, Team
EazyChange won with a solution that provides simpler payment for transportation. The
solution is programmed to ease the problem of scarcity of lower denominations for transport
fare within Lagos and other states. The winning team received the $10,000 prize and will
also join the bank for a period of 6 months.
Team 2i became the rst runners-up for a backend solution designed to solve problems in
Know Your Customer (KYC). Team Lendse came out as the second runner-up for creating a
solution that tackles alternative credit scoring for nancial institutions.
Besides the winning teams, participants who impressed with their ideas and work attitude
will gain access to incubation and acceleration programs at the Wema Bank’s innovation lab,
Codeville. The innovation lab will help nurture tech solutions and other business ideas into
marketable brands through investment opportunities, business support and mentorship.
The bank also used the platform to announce Ignite by Wema, a special business account for
micro, small and medium enterprises. The all-inclusive account will support MSMEs to
upgrade their businesses through partnerships with the bank, leverage on the bank’s
network and marketing channels, provide access to business advisory, incubation benets
and concessions on business loans of up to N3m.
Hackaholics was organized in partnership with Scooper and Ntel who provided media
support and internet services respectively. Wema Bank will continue its track record of
creating and promoting platforms that will pave the way towards building the future of
Nigeria’s ntech and business sectors
