Three final year students of the Federal University of Technology, Akure, at the weekend emerged winners of the Nigerian version of a Microsoft-sponsored software creation competition.
The students are expected to represent Nigeria next week in the United States where they will compete with others from around the globe in the process of using software to solve socio-economic and medical problems.
David Olaniyan of the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering; Taiwo Orogbangba of the Computer Science Department; and Toluwanimi Kolawole of Agriculture Science Department came out tops in the competition tagged "Microsoft Imagine Cup competition", an annual global contest where the best brains from around the world come up with software solutions to real world challenges.
Mr Olaniyan said his team, which was named Nerds Inc. came up with a project called Medicare which involved a blueprint and the supporting software for the management of healthcare delivery in Africa.
He explained that the project also centred on how to make healthcare delivery effective in remote rural settings and use it as a veritable tool for achieving the health component of the Millennium Development Goals.
Solicits for votes
"Our team then came up with a software solution we named Medicare and it is aimed at enabling the provision of accessible, affordable and quality healthcare to all," he said. "Medicare has its primary target as developing and underdeveloped countries where the doctor to patient ratio is alarmingly small. Medicare leverages the efforts and skill of the few available doctors in these countries to reach the millions of rural community dwellers who do not have access to quality and professional healthcare."
Mr Olaniyan also explained that part of the US competition is a Peoples Choice Award, where people across the globe would vote online for a particular team and therefore solicited for votes from Nigerians.