The FG is organizing a hackathon to leverage technology in making MDAs accountable

On Tuesday, the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) opened registration for the first edition of #PEBECHack, a series of Hackathons designed to solve problems where government processes and regulations meet, and the ease of doing business in Nigeria.

A statement released by the Council after its monthly meeting at the State House says the first #PEBECHack will bring together various teams to compete on developing a tool that will promote accountability, performance tracking and transparency among key Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) which, in turn, is important to the success of Nigeria’s Ease of Doing Business Reforms.

“The competing teams would develop a service management solution that will allow citizens monitor, provide feedback, report, make complaints, and ‘blow-a- whistle’ about the quality of service received from key Federal Government Doing Business MDAs or at strategic locations such as airports, seaports and land borders,” the statement says.

Up to N1.5 million in cash prizes will be won, with several other in-kind prizes also up for grabs.

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If you are interested in #PEBECHack, you can register as individuals or teams on www.ebes.gov.ng/pebec-hackathon between Tuesday May 23 to Tuesday June 6, 2017. The Hackathon itself will hold over two days on June 23 and 24, 2017 in Lagos.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who is the PEBEC chair, had announced on May 1, 2017 at an event in Lagos that the PEBEC Secretariat would be bringing together techies in a Hackathon to develop a “solution for tracking reforms and getting public feedback… and enable the public to complain directly about government agencies that are making doing business difficult.”

Similarly, the PEBEC Secretariat announced that it will roll out a survey in the coming days to gather feedback from the public on challenges related to producing, trading and transporting goods within Nigeria. The survey is focused on capturing feedback for key agencies — SON, NAFDAC, NOTAP, MITITrademarks office, Police and Customs.

#PEBECHack is held in partnership with L5 Lab, Venture Garden Group, Techplus and Microsoft. Media partners are Pulse, Ynaija and Starta.

For more information about the hackathon, visit www.ebes.gov.ng/pebec-hackathon or on Twitter: @EBESnigeria and Facebook: www.Facebook.com/EBESnigeria.

The official hashtag is #PEBECHack. For enquiries, send an email to info@ebes.gov.ng.