The FG's ease of business hackathon holds promise

The event which took place On Saturday, June 24, 2017 and Sunday, June 25, 2017 at the new Andela Campus located at Epic Tower, Lagos.

The PEBEC Hackathon is a public-private sector partnership between PEBEC (government) and L5 Labs (private sector), with support from Andela, ConSol, Venture Garden Group, Techplus and Microsoft.

The hackathon held over two days starting with an impact panel tasked with discussing the topic “Government meets business meets technology” with the dialogue leaning towards the challenges and areas of collaboration in the areas of policy, business and technology.

The panel, moderated by Tola Onayemi, Reform Leader at the Enabling Business Environment Secretariat, included Mark Essien, CEO/Founder at Hotels.ng; Ademola “Dem” Eleso, Chairman at ConSol Limited; MosopeOlaosebikan, Special Assistant to the President on ICT; and Nkemdilim Begho, CEO at Future Software Resources Limited.

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Discussion during the panel session centered around Nigeria’s current business environment, the challenges it poses and solutions that could effectively mitigate those challenges.

Various solutions and innovative ideas were imparted to the 15 teams that participated in the hackathon. Panelists also gave advice on policy, the role of the private sector in making the business environment friendlier in relation to government and technology’s role in leveraging its assets for better ease in doing business.

Just after the panel session, Dr. Jumoke Oluwole, Senior Special Assistant to the President of Industry, Trade and Investment [and coordinator of the Enabling Business Environment Secretariat] gave the opening remarks and highlighted the pain points the hackathon aimed to solve.

On the Ease of Business Index, put together by the World Bank, Nigeria currently ranks 169 out of 190 countries globally. The purpose of the hackathon is to leverage the advantages of technology to foster a new era of less cumbersome business processes in which local and foreign investors/business owners alike can thrive.

The 15 teams involved in the hackathon are: Cellophane, Code Ninjas, CodingLab, InfusionTech, IntelliTech, i-Service Nigeria, MSN, MudHutTechnologies, Powersoft, Rhapsody, ServiTrack, Swiftsynq, Tenece, UrekkaLabs and Zynar.