In recent years, the fusion of technology with the Nigerian finance space has become more impressive. This is especially due to the rise in innovative solutions by startups in certain areas of the banking structure including payments, loans, insurance, AI, Data science etc. This disruption of the finance space has not only woken interest in customers and stakeholders but has also attracted global attention.
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Although there has been marked progress with innovative solutions, there is still more work to be done. Problems like the financial exclusion of a large number of people, low insurance penetration in the country and the transition from a cash-based to a cashless economy. Principal problems like these are what hackathons are introduced to solve.
Hackathon is a tool for corporate innovation. In the tech space, hackathons are usually mentioned a lot and for non-techies, it may seem like it’s something that involves hacking a database; this is not so. Hackathon is an event or contest primarily aimed at creating projects or solutions in a competitive environment and limited time frame. Over time, I have shared several tech opportunities and today I will share a hackathon by SkyCapital coming up later this month.
SkyCapital Limited is an organization that enables businesses to thrive and help clients maximize their returns. The company is poised to build a firm reputation for quality research, investment expertise and value-added services with an excellent customer-centric approach to clients locally and internationally. With this mission in mind, SkyCapital is sponsoring the Illuminate program.
The Illuminate program is a one-week intense gathering of technology enthusiasts, developers, product managers, innovation specialists and entrepreneurs convened to re-think the myriads of problems confronting Africa’s finance space and developing technology-driven solutions that can help leapfrog the current challenges and create the desired tomorrow today.
Focus Areas
These problems identified are grouped into focus areas to present an opportunity for smart people on the continent to leverage and push the frontiers of financial services and create wealth for all stakeholders along the line. Through the Illuminate program, qualified participants will be drawn to individually or jointly address issues in the following focus areas:
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- Nano and micro-lending
- Alternative banking
- Data
- SME lending and inclusion
- Customer experience
- Payments
Benefits
- Participants will be exposed to sessions led by top Fintech business leaders and finance executives.
- The program will climax with a demo day, where the participants will present their solutions to a team of industry experts, investors, advisors, community and business leaders and select audience.
- Top 3 teams will be rewarded with equity funding, technical support and free office space.
- The winning pitch will be incubated by SkyCapital and will be given technical and financial support to develop into a market fit product.
- The winner will also leverage the extensive network of Skycapital’s clientele base in Nigeria and beyond.
Venue: 10 Anifowoshe Street, off Adeola Odeku, Victoria Island. Lagos
Date: 15th March to 4th April, 2020
To reserve a spot at the event, register here.
I will leave you with this wealth nugget by Elizabeth Warren on how to have enough:
“Balancing your money is the key to having enough.”
– Elizabeth Warren
Featured Image Source: Techpoint Africa
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