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Tech for Good 2021

Showcasing Tech Innovations for Social Good in Africa.

What is Tech for Good?

The Tech for Good (T4G) is an annual conference that aims to showcase the impact of using Technology for Social Good in Africa.

It is the intentional use of technology to try and have a positive, measurable impact on the world. It’s about using technology to solve big social and environmental challenges.

Why Tech for Good?

There is a lot of negative information being spread out there concerning Tech and its use in Africa. We created Tech for Good to solve this problem.

First, the evolution of technology is beneficial to humans for several reasons. At the medical level, technology can help treat more sick people and consequently save many lives and combat very harmful viruses and bacteria. … Technology has also increased the productivity of almost every industry in the world.

Technology affects the way individuals communicate, learn, and think. It helps society and determines how people interact with each other on a daily basis. It’s made learning more interactive and collaborative, this helps people better engage with the material that they are learning and have trouble with. 

 In summary, it has become an intricate part of our being.

There is a lot of good being done in the Tech Space, startups, innovators, individuals, companies, NGOs are working tirelessly to ensure lives are improved. How much of those actions are being showcased especially in the international media?

T4G brings together students, communities, hubs, organizations, Non-profits, etc to explore veritable use cases for using technology for social good.

Aims and Objectives

  • Showcase innovations in Technology across African Continent
  • Foster Collaboration
  • Provide mechanisms for people to access or use technologies in an open, cost-efficient, and sustainable way.
  • Promote Diversity and Inclusion in Tech. Tech for Good welcomes everyone who has made an impact using Technology in Africa.

Event Recap

The Tech for Good Conference was held on the 2nd October 2021 at TechCreek, Rivers State ICT. Port Harcourt.

The event featured; 

  • Talks
  • Kickstart Award Presentation
  • Inaugural Ceremony

Event Stats

No of Attendees: over 250 attendees

Social Impact Orgs: 10

Social Impact Projects: 2

Speakers: 5

Partners/Sponsors: 2

Present at the Conference was;

Mr Ibifuro Asawo (SA to Rivers State Govt.) was represented by Ella Blaise. She spoke on the topic Driving Social Good Innovations and Youth Development using Technology  

  1. Daniel Don (Founder, Frontend Mentorship) spoke on Using your Tech Skills for Social Good 
  1. Goodnews (CEO, Dantown Multiservices) spoke on Using Blockchain for Social Good
  1. Stephen Okonkwo (Product Lead, Voyance) spoke on his Journey in Tech

Social Impact Organizations

Accelerate Hub was represented by the Women in Tech Accelerate Lead.

Fairexx Solutions was represented by Godfrey Ayaosi, Product Manager.

HerTechTrail was represented by Alex Chibueyim, Design Director at HerTechTrail.

CodeAmbassadors representative speaking at the Tech for Good Conf.

OlotuSquare was represented by Bruce Lucas, CEO OlotuSquare.

FemCode Africa was represented by Shullamite, Founder of FemCode.

TechnovilleNG was represented by the Founder, Technoville – Richard Sodienye Pepple

Kickstart Award Presentation

The award was presented to the recipients of the Kickstart Award Scholarship which consists;

  • Personal Laptop
  • Data support
  • 6months Training.

The recipients of the scholarship were;

  • Prince Onuzulike from Inama International College
  • Chijioke Egbomuche from Hybrid College
Prince Onuzulike receiving his scholarship
Prince Onuzulike receiving his T4G swag from our partner company Dantown
Prince Onuzulike and his mother and siblings with a representative from the Inama International College – Mavis Ejiofor (right)
Chijioke Egbomuche receiving his scholarship from the CEO, Dantown Mr Goodnews Igwe
Chijioke Egbomuche and his Father (Left)

Read more about the TechingTheYoung Outreach 2021.

A Look at Our Partners and Sponsors

Dantown is a fintech company that solves on-ramp and off-ramp payment problems by providing a secure environment through its mobile application, where users can trade cryptocurrency and gift cards.

Our services are geared with customers’ needs in mind. This is the reason we focus on securing the funds of customers, provide a 24/7 helpdesk service, and also offer great digital asset-to-fiat rates.

The company’s goal is to provide more services within the coming months that will further make financial settlements safer, easier and more accessible for the unbanked. 

Founder, Techrity in a group photo with the Dantown Team

Productsio is a learning hub for product builders. we train product makers to build products that are intuitive, that deliver real, usable and commercially valuable innovation through research and understanding in-depth the different cultural keys that go into making a product attractive to local markets.

Productsio representative, Iyerefa speaking
Productsio, sponsors of Tech for Good represented by the Productsio Team

Inaugural Ceremony

Techrity is a tech non-profit that began its operations in December 2020, incorporated in April 2021 and officially launched on 2nd October, 2021 focused on talent development and building innovative solutions using technology for social good in Africa.

We aim to bridge the gap in unemployment, gender inclusion and poverty by providing the vital resources needed to kickstart young talents into tech and build solutions for social good in Africa. 

We envision an Africa where everyone has equal access to opportunities. Has a motivation to pay it forward. We’re engineering the spirit of social good in Africans. We believe if we solve the problem of the digital divide, gender inclusion gap, unemployment and target more social innovations with technology we can inspire social good actions in others.

Tech for Good Team, Speakers, Special Guests cutting the inaugural cake
Tech for Good Team

You can follow the updates from the Tech for Good conference on Social Media using the hashtag:

  • #T4G
  • #techrity
  • #sdg9

Important Links

For enquiries. Send a message to: hello@techrity.org

Tech for Good Livestream is available on Youtube.

Thank you for reading!

Categories
Kickstart Tech Techrity Programmes

TECHing The Young: Techrity IWD2021 Educational Outreach Program

The impact of educational outreach programs in schools can be felt on the academic, physiological, and psychological traits of the students.

Various barriers prevent many young ones, even the young female, from starting a career in tech at an early age. One of such barriers is the lack of sensitization of an early career start in tech, even as a secondary school student, limited availability of resources and materials for learning, as well as a Mentor, to guide and track progress. 

Techrity’s talent development scheme called the Kickstart program is aimed at solving these problems. We embarked on an outreach program tagged: TECHing the Young in various secondary schools in a bid to educate the young ones on the need to start a career in tech at a young age to boycott the unemployment problem faced in Nigeria. The outreach program was embarked on to commemorate the International Women’s Day held on 8th March 2021, and also to sensitize the female gender and educate them on the opportunities for females in technology, this was done as part of our commitment to the UN SDGs 5: Bridging the gap in gender disparity in the tech industry.

The outreach program featured talks centered on careers in tech, the need to start their careers early, as well as showcasing successful young talents in the tech industry such as Opemipo Disu, the 15-year-old developer and IBM champion from Nigeria.

Opemipo Disu aka the 15y.o developer and IBM Champion

Two students who showed great enthusiasm were awarded scholarships to enable them to kickstart their tech journey. Techrity’s Kickstart program includes a laptop, a personal mentor and data support for each child to aid their learning journey.

These students are Prince Onuzulike of Inama International Secondary School, and Chijioke Egbuomuche, a student of the Hybrid International Academy. 

Prince Onuzulike is in class 1 in the Junior Secondary category of Inama International Secondary School. Prince is a young lad who almost had a deformed hand from an accident, which is quite noticeable.

From left: Miss Owanate (Founder, Techrity), Mrs. Onuzulike, Prince Onuzulike, and Mr. Adagboyi Joseph (Principal, Inama Intl Sec. Sch.)

Chijioke Egbuomuche is a student of Hybrid International Academy Senior Secondary. He has a flair for creating things which can be seen in the picture below.

Chijioke created a Fan, a Car, and a Dispenser. These things were all made from cartons, D.C motors and batteries. For the fan, he used something like a blade to act as the propeller so an amount of air touches you when it is turned on. The car moves with help of the D.C motor connected to the back tyre under the car. The Dispenser is a manual one, so it had no use for the D.C motor. Chijioke’s creativity and innovation are what earned him the scholarship to further enhance his creative flair and help him digitally.

Chijioke – Winner of Techrity Kickstart Scholarship Award and Owanate

The recipients of Techrity’s Kickstart Program will be given a laptop, a mentor as well as data support, to help guide these young minds to early career exploits in technology. The mentors assigned to these young ones are responsible for their growth and progress in technology. 

Few students were also awarded cash prizes for their great performances. These students are David Bob, Emmanuel Ekeh, Prince Onuzulike, all of Inama International Secondary School and Miracle Eboseh of Hybrid International Academy. Some of the students were awarded cash prizes for their ability to answer technical questions, performance in examinations and their quest for knowledge.

A student receiving a maths set and books for his outstanding performance
A student receiving a maths set and books for her outstanding performance

Techrity is all about Helping New Talents and building solutions for social good, we also believe in Paying it Forward.

Watch this explainer video on Youtube.

Students of Inama International Secondary School 
Students from Hybrid International Academy 
Techrity Outreach Team

Important Links

Visit the Techrity Website

Watch the Women in Leadership and Technology Virtual Event on Youtube

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on Instagram

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on LinkedIn

Thanks for reading!

Categories
Build4SocialGood General News Tech

Showcasing The Winners for the Techrity #Build4InformalSector Hackathon 2020 Prize For Social Good Innovation!

On 1st December, 2020, The Techrity #Build4SocialGood Hackathon Programme team announced the #Buil4InformalSector Virtual Hackathon.

We welcomed Software Developers, Designers and subject matter experts to ideate and build solutions for solving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal for the African Continent.

Participants ideated and built solutions addressing UN’s Sustainable Development Goals 9, that is, promoting the industry, innovation, and infrastructure (SDG9), in the following areas.

1. Identity Management 
2. On-lending facility and access to credit through non-traditional financial channels
3. Credit Score and Reputation-based rating

For more info, see Announcing The #Build4InformalSector Hackathon 2020

We received a total of three project submissions for the On-lending facility and access to credit through non-traditional financial channels category.

The following teams submitted their solutions;

Team FundMyFarm

FundMyFarm is aimed at making smallholder farmers have access to informal credit facilities without any hassle whatsoever. We also make it possible for anyone who loves farming but does not have time to do it, to grow together with the smallholder farmers as they put smiles in the face of downtrodden while at the same time, their resources are working for them.


Team Trix

QuikMoni addresses the problem of SME access to credit without collateral.


Team Dorti

Dorti provides a system where users can assist or take care of garbage and get rewarded for it.

A total of 30 participants, 9 teams, and 3 projects were recorded for the #Build4InformalSector Hackathon 2020.

These projects were compiled and submitted to our panel of judges, and we are excited to announce that a winning team emerged.

Participating teams also got a chance to demo their projects in an online event on the 8 January 2021 in front of a live audience and received feedback from our highly esteemed judges.

View the Demo Day Event Recording.

Team Trix: QuikMoni emerged as the overall Winners of the Maiden #Build4InformalSector Hackathon 2020 Prize for Social Good Innovation.

The winning team has access to;

  1. A hub support 
  2. $250 cash prize.
  3. The Techrity #Build4SocialGood Incubation program.

Congratulations to Team Trix: QuikMoni for emerging winners of the #Build4InformalSector Hackathon 2020 and all of the participating teams who helped turn innovative ideas into practical solutions for Africa.

Visit the URL to the QuikMoni solution.

All teams’ prototypes and code can be found on the website and on the #Build4SocialGood Repository on Github.

We sincerely appreciate all participating teams, judges, mentors, speakers and partners who have been with us throughout the beginning of this hackathon. The time and effort invested towards building for social good and addressing the UN #sdgs challenges in Africa cannot go unnoticed.

We look forward to hosting our next #Build4SocialGood Hackathon coming up in the following months in 2021.

Thank you!

Categories
Build4SocialGood General Tech

Announcing Techrity’s #Build4InformalSector Hackathon 2020

Techrity’s #Build4SocialGood presents;

Build For The Informal Sector (sdg9) 

Prize

$250

Timeline of Activities

  1. Registration begins 1st December 2020 via Hackathon Registration
  2. Join the Slack Workspace
  3. Hackathon Starts: 7 December 2020
  4. Project Submission Deadline: 21-23rd December 2020 
  5. Judging starts: 28th December – 2nd January 2021
  6. Demo Day/Award Ceremony: 16th January 2021

Why #Build4Informal Sector?

Nigeria’s informal economy has grown considerably over the last decade.

These are the individuals and micro-enterprises whose economic well-being is birthed and buoyed on the fringes of the formal economy; business activities that remain unregulated, and oftentimes, completely unknown.

Initially, much of the rhetoric centred on the need to ‘manage’ this ever-expanding behemoth that the informal sector was becoming. This narrative has since evolved into one that seeks to formalise these businesses, by catering to their needs and providing them with much-needed support.

Like other parts of the economy, the informal sector has taken a hit from the COVID-19 crisis. Governments have mandated workers to take costly protective measures, such as the regular purchase of masks, the reduction in the number of passengers for motorcycle taxis, or the observance of curfews. Farmers have seen falling demand for their produce as restaurants have reduced their purchases in the face of dwindling traffic.

Key Areas Of Focus

We leave it to you to design the new conditions for the informal economy, and offer the following provocations as a place to get started for your MVPs, prototypes, etc;

  1. On-lending facility and access to credit through non-traditional financial channels
    1. For example, how might we build custom financial solutions for entrepreneurs to access credit outside the regular financial system, other methods of crowdfunding exist such as cooperative funding with little to no default on loan acquisition.
  2. Identity management
    1. Beyond the use of identity cards, bank verification numbers, etc., how can we design an economy where individuals can build a solid identity with other means of identification they can provide such as their telephone number, Social security numbers, school certificates, etc.
  3. Credit-score/reputation based rating
    1. Using purchasing behavior, community validation, etc. How can we design an economy that takes into cognizance an individual behavior as a form of credit score acquisition, for e.g, the ability to use an individual’s reputation overtime on social media as a means to build their credit and reputation score for use in accessing credit and lending facilities outside non-traditional financial systems.

For more info, see the Issues Board.

How to Join

  1. Register your team to hack: Hackathon Registration
  2. Join the slack channel: Techrity Slack Workspace
  3. Read the hackathon guide

How To Submit Hackathon Project

Follow the steps outlined on the #Build4SocialGood Repository readme instructions to submit your project.

Official Hashtags

Please promote this hackathon so it can reach a wider audience on Social Media using the following hastags.

#techrityB4SGHack2020
#techrity
#SDG9
#Build4InformalSector

We can’t wait to see what you have built!

Happy Hacking!!