Security hackathon teams receive N1.4 million prize money from social media giant

Of that 250+, 63 were chosen to attend the hackathon at the CyberXchange event and spend two days working on their solutions as they face real world challenges.

Each team worked on a prototype, developed a presentation, and pitched their solutions to a panel of judges. On the panel was Yemi Saka of Ernst & Young, Babafemi Ogungbamila of Interswitch, Regina Wallace-Jones of Facebook, and Big Cabal Media's Bankole Oluwafemi.

“The competitors worked tirelessly to create their solutions, and we were inspired by their dedication and passion for security.

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"Encouraging this kind of talent is important to the future of the security industry, and that is why we met with several university professors at CyberXchange to talk about how to continue to strengthen security curriculum and training,” said Regina Wallace-Jones, Head of Security Operations at Facebook, and a judge at the hackathon.

The winning team developed a solution that provides multi-channel authentication to help secure the accounts of employees of a large enterprise.

The first-placed team received a N700,000 cash prize with commendations from the panel of judges while the second and third -placed teams each received N400,000 and N300,000 respectively.