Wema Bank earmarks N70m for Hackaholics contest

Wema Bank Sunday unveiled the 5th edition of its flagship youth and startup-focused tech competition, Hackaholics 5.0, with no fewer than 15,000 applicants being targeted.

The bank also plans to spend over N70m on winners of the competition as part of its commitment to support young and budding innovators and start-ups across the country.

Hackaholics is an annual tech and innovation competition launched in 2019 to provide a platform for young Nigerians with tech-driven ideas to bring their game-changing ideas to life, scale up their ventures or startups and access a wider market for their tech-enabled solutions.

The breakdown of the prize money indicated that N30m would go to the first prize winner; N20m for the second prize winner, while the third prize winner gets N15m.

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In addition, N10m would go to a women-led start-up.

Themed “Meta-Idea: DigiTech Solutions for Africa’s Prosperity”, Hackaholics 5.0 will be executed over a six-month period, touring 10 universities across the country.

The Executive Director, Retail and Digital, Mr. Tunde Mabawonku, said Wema Bank is committed to empowering young people through innovation.

“This Hackaholics is so important to us. It is a crucial platform for exploring digital transformation and innovation. Our vision is ambitious and audacious and we believe it is achievable by embracing innovation. I encourage everyone to key into Hackaholics 2024. Bring your ideas and let us use technology to create solutions for societal impact,” he said.

Wema Bank’s Chief Transformation Officer, Babatunde Mumuni, said the bank is using the competition to promote and support STEM education.

“With the birth of ALAT, a few things became clear, one of which is that while we have adopted innovation and digital excellence as our path to greatness, we need talented, bright minds to drive this innovation, and this is one of the reasons we launched Hackaholics.”

The Divisional Head of Brands, People and Culture, Ololade Ogungbenro, stated that the bank is supporting Nigeria’s vibrant huge youth population thereby discouraging the japa syndrome.