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The University of Nigeria, Nsukka opened in 1960 has had many firsts in its lifetimes and does not seem to be stopping anytime soon. The university was the first federal university located in Eastern Nigeria. It was the first indigenous university in Nigeria to grant its own “Nigerian” degree rather that from America or London like the other universities did, first university in Africa to get a land grant, first open heart surgery in Nigeria took place in its teaching hospital. Venturing into the recent stride technology has taken in the country, the university built a full-fledged embedded ICT Hub, Roar Nigeria Hub, the first of its kind in Nigeria. The university has also established the first university-based Science Park, Lion Science Park and the first university-based laptop assembly line, Lion Gadgets and Technologies Ltd.

Progressing, the university is set to hold its first National Innovation Summit on 6-8 June, 2019 with the theme: Catching-up with the Fourth Industrial Revolution: The Role of Innovation which aims to inspire and facilitate dialogue on the smart, safe, sustainable and innovative ways of ensuring a paradigm shift to a knowledge-based, collaborative and entrepreneurial economy as the country prepares for the Fourth Industrial Revolution will take place at the Nsukka campus of the University. Through one of its initiative, Lion Science Park, UNN is also organizing the first ever university led competition for startups tagged Venture Cup Nigeria.
Venture Cup Nigeria is an initiative of the innovation ecosystem of the University of Nigeria. It is the first tertiary institution-led startup initiative in Nigeria. The start-up competition will guarantee an equity free seed funding of various amounts to be won as prizes at regional and national levels.
At regional level, competition will hold between the six geopolitical zones of the country with the winner heading home with NGN300,000, the second runner up with NGN150,000 and the third runner up with NGN100,000. At the grand finale, the first winner heads home with NGN1,000,000; the second runner up NGN500,000 with and the third with NGN300,000.

Speaking on the importance of the competition, Professor Benjamin C. Ozumba, Vice Chancellor of UNN and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Lion Science Park, stated that the major goal of the Venture Cup Nigeria competition is to stimulate students of tertiary institutions to begin to think innovation and entrepreneurship as the way to go and to be competitive in the wake of the fourth industrial revolution. He added that the prizes are to support student-led innovative ideas to takeoff. This will aid easy identification of promising startups for innovation across the tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
Chinwe Okoli, Manager of Lion Science Park, announced that “the competition is open to innovative ideas from all sectors and for students from all higher institutions in Nigeria. However, the best ideas for this competition need to be technology-enabled. This is to encourage the use of technology in providing innovative solutions”.

Also, there will be a Lion Science Park Marathon, themed Run to Innovate which is a symbolic exercise that will also hold in Nsukka. The Run to Innovate Marathon has a prize of NGN 50,000, NGN 30,000 and NGN 20,000 for the first, second and third positions respectively.

Give your idea a boost by signing up to participate in this competition here. The deadline for application is 15th May, 2019.

Sources:
Tech Economy
Business Day
UNN

Featured image source: UNN

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This article was first published on 8th May 2019

aanu-olajide

Aanuoluwapo Olajide is a freelance writer who believes that words are fundamental blocks and are the force of life and death. She is a tech enthusiast, fashion designer and a lover of words.