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By Oluwatobi Opusunju and Chinedu James
All roads lead to Yenagoa, the capital of oil rich Bayelsa in southern Nigeria. Yenagoa is hosting the inaugural ‘Bayelsa Ignition Week 2018′ from March 1-3. The event welomes innovators and other stakeholders across the broad spectrum of ICT, including tech entrepreneurs, hardware and software makers, tech aggregators, angel investors and venture capitalists.
To participate, visit: http://bigweek.yinigeria.com.ng
The event covers a three day boot-camp empowerment programme and is to kick-start the ‘Bayelsa Technology Forum’l focus on ‘software/mobile apps competition’, designed to foster interest among young people in software engineering and the entire spectrum of ICT.
The event will be featuring facilitators that drive Nigeria’s technology innovation space including founder of Jidaw Systems and a Fellow of the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), Jide Awe; founder of Jos based nHub, Daser David; founder of Network of Incubators and Innovators in Nigeria (NINe), Bankole Oloruntoba; and founder of Startup Arewa, Mohammed Ibrahim Jega among other trainers.
‘Bayelsa Ignition Week’ is powered the Bayelsa State Government as the Host-State, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), and Nigerian Computer Society (NCS), and Knowhow Media International (publishers of IT Edge News) amongst other stakeholders.
The event will be officially declared open by the Executive Governor of Bayelsa State, Rt Hon. Henry Seriake Dickson and the Honorable Minister of Communication Barr Adebayo Shittu.
The ‘Bayelsa Ignition Week 2018’ is put together for Bayelsa State government by the Young Innovators of Nigeria (YIN) as part of a long term strategic framework by YIN and the Government of Bayelsa State to develop the ICT innovation ecosystem in the oil rich state and assist young Bayelsans in acquiring tech skills.
YIN is led by Abu Andrew and Head Business of Development Engr. Jeffery Udende, Senior Special Assistant to Benue State Governor on ICT.
Sponsors are: Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), StartUp Arewa, Google, MainOne, Vogue Pay, N-hub, B. Okay Koncept, Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), NIINE, and others.
The programme is basically designed to help Bayelsa innovators in ICT/hardware/General technology and other innovations, to achieve their dreams big time.
The event will serve as the Bayelsa platform to help bring innovative youths who have business ideas in ICT/hardwares/General technology together for a roundtable discuss with government and high profiled individuals.
The ideas of such youths will be remodelled to form a profitable business ventures, the idea is to create sustainable jobs for the state. Resource persons from from the global technology entrepreneurship cirlce will be present to tutor and mentor the youths, they will also invest in selected startup businesses of the Youths.
The event will also promote the use of technology to improve businesses in the state and make Bayelsa economically dependable.
The programme will be done in phases, participants after training and mentoring, will be directly engaged as service providers for the state since they will now posses the requisite skills for current technology needs.
To participate,
Visit: http://bigweek.yinigeria.com.ng
All applications are to be submitted online only, there are no backdoors to participation. The portal is designed to screen unqualified persons and allow only qualified persons with the needed qualities to be screened in.
• The best 10 startups will be given laptops and acceleration programs*.
• Participants will be the pioneer members for the formation of Bayelsa young innovators and building of a technology hub in the state by the Government*
• Participants stands a chance of getting sponsorships for their innovations and getting employed in federal, state institutions and parastatals.
• And many other benefits, especially the needed knowledge and skills to grow and develop your potentials in ICT/hardware and General technology
