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Fintech1000plus recently honoured three telecommunication companies and some of its members following their immense contributions to the association’s CSR COVID-19 intervention for the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).
Leading the honours list as Fintech1000plus Heroes are Airtel, MTN, Gobalcom, Rev. Sunday Folayan, past president of Nigerian Internet Registration Association (NiRA); Sola Fanawopo, co-founder and CEO of eMaginations; and other volunteers. The awards were presented by Abubakar Suleiman, Managing Director Sterling Bank plc and Omoke Adebanjo, Mastercard Senior Vice President, Regional Franchise Lead (Middle East & Africa). Both are members of Fintech1000plus, Nigeria’s foremost informal association in the banking, financial and allied technology sector.
Speaking at the virtual event which was held recently, Iyin Aboyeji, Founder Future Africa and member Fintech1000plus said, “after some weeks after COVID-19 hit the country we observed some technology challenges which the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) was having. They included; inability to efficiently disseminate mass media communication & information to all mobile phones concurrently, and incidence reporting which includes; tracking, tracing and citizens action points.”
The association after discussing among its members and interacting with the NCDC decided to put together a number of front-end interfaces that will rapidly use the Covid-19 Risk Assessment triage to quickly analyze information from the public, while storing the information in a backend database for subsequent analysis and follow-up.
The front ends were made up of; Interactive Voice Response system (IVR), USSD application in major Nigerian languages, desktop tools for web-based access, and a mobile APP. Moreover, as much as possible, make the front ends toll free or ZERO cost to the people, and for the telcos to make the portal access free for such incident response systems.
Acknowledging the outcome of the Fintech1000plus support, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, Director General NCDC commended the association, its telecom partners and volunteers for a job well done.
“The fight against COVID-19 is not a government or public sector battle alone. But that of every stakeholder of the Nigeria project. Fintech1000plus support is well appreciated and a commendable partnership from the private sector. It is our wish that such will continue, not just during this COVID-19 pandemic but in other areas in future.”
Fintech1000plus is an informal association of professionals in the financial technology sector that adopts a pragmatic approach to solving problems, especially those that impact the ability of Nigerians to do business and make payments and Settlements Electronically.
In line with its CSR activities, it played significant roles in the fight against the global Covid-19 pandemic working with NCDC.
