Intel Corporation has described Federal Government’s Aso Villa Demo Day (AVDD2016) Initiative as a critical computer and internet enabled approach to promoting entrepreneurship, innovation, job creation and

Grand finale of the Initiative that leverages new and emerging technologies held at Aso Villa State House Admin Banquet Hall, Abuja, on Friday, produced three winners- Tracology, RecyclePoints and Shuttlers NG and 27 other finalists.

The event which celebrated the tech startups’ innovation and creativity also featured inspiring talks from thought leaders and experts from different economic sectors in Nigeria.

Delivery closing speech President Muhammadu Buhari, represented Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, re-echoed that, “computer plays big role in our everyday lives, and even our extraordinary moments. Computer has become so powerful that youths today cannot say they want to be part of the government; they are already part of it and playing key roles”.

The President’s speech reaffirms Intel’s “With a Computer, You are Powerful” campaign launched last month and geared towards unlocking ability of young people to get online any time, read, research and explore different concepts that spur creative ideas for their business and/or lifestyle; “just a snippet of the kind of power a computer offers you.”

The Vice President said, “Most of the people who organised Aso Demo Day are working for the government in one capacity or the other with helping hands from the private sector. So, #AVDD2016 is the first titration in series of events mapped by the present administration to address employment and other economic issues in our country”.

VP Osibanjo who spoke reverently of Mark Zuckerberg, Founder/CEO of Facebook who was present at the event, also urged the Nigerian Youths not to relent on their pursuit of excellence in different endeavours.

He said, “We are happy to have Mark Zuckerberg in our midst as he has become source of inspiration to many youths. We are also working on different areas we are going to partner. Aso Villa Demo Day 2016 is the first titration; we look forward to more expanded programme by next year to give more youths the opportunity to express themselves”.

Nodding in agreement, Ekundare Olubunmi, Country manager of Intel, stated that the Aso Villa Demo pitch ties in appropriately to Intel’s core objectives of empowering Nigerians with technology.

He said” Technology is the backbone of the future economy. The rate of change brought about by technology and especially computers is exponential, hence, the reason Intel will continue to invest in technology and to support start -ups who have empowered themselves and Nigerians in general through the use of computer technology”

Three Winners Emerge
Shuttlers NG
Damilola Olokesusi and Oluwabusola Majekodunmi are co-founders of Shuttlers NG, a mass transit application that enables professionals to access comfortable and efficient transportation to and from work using seat matching technology.

Speaking to Nigeria CommunicationsWeek Majekodunmi, said the application will redefine mass transit system in the country, particularly, traffic congested cities like in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Abuja, among other.

“Shuttle professionals can book and track whatever journey they embark on to and fro. We have are working on the app, however, currently, professionals book on our site. When we refer to professionals, we mean, anyone that commutes to work or activities daily; we know how stressful it has been for people to drive to traffic without prior notice. We are entrenching safe, quality transport system that is affordable. We want to help the government maintain standard transportation system too.

“Through the application people can locate the jetties, bus stops and train stations. Someone can get to the jetty and prefer to continue his/her ride in a bus. So, currently, we run a subscription based model, but we are working towards enabling people book for, probably, cab via the system”.

Tracology
Tracology deploys Barcodes/QRcodes to residences serviced by registered utility/waste management companies.
 
These Barcodes/QRcodes are scanned on waste pickup day thereby verifying customers that have paid using electronic payment. The customers, in turn, pay online and on the delivery day.

Also speaking to Nigeria CommunicationsWeek, Emmanuel Okena, founder/CEO of Tracology said that the patented smart payment system will boost governments’ and utility companies’ revenue generation drive while engendering customer service satisfaction.

Okena said, “With Tracology we help government and utility companies whether it is waste, water or land use charge, we help them affix barcodes on the residence so that through the barcode it will be easier to identify their clients. It offers real time authentication of payment for services.

“We have seen with our technology is that it will enable us have cleaner cities, increased revenue generation, which leads to more civil serviced activities like building of roads, income generation, better return on investments for companies on our platform. It is a win-win situation for everybody that is involved.

“We like to thank Microsoft for giving us seed funding to position the company for early growth. Apart from the seed funding of N3.5million, they opened up the Microsoft Azure which we are using to post our software; supportive with mentorship and it has been a wonderful experience with Microsoft. “The next stage is for us to drive adoption across the country which will benefit all that will be part of it.

On his part, Alison Ukonu, CEO/founder, Recycle reiterated that RecyclePoints as a waste recycling and social benefit venture operates an incentive-based scheme which collects recyclable materials from post consumers and in turn rewards them with ‘points.’

These points, when accumulated, Ukonu said, could be used to redeem/shop for household items offered through its iRecycle store.

He told Nigeria CommunicationsWeek that at RecyclePoints they encourage post-consumers to neatly separate and bag waste items for collection. Such items are: plastic waste; used beverage sachets; sachet water wastes; old newspapers; glass bottles, whether clear, amber or green and brown corrugated cartoons.

“So, registered subscribers are expected to call/sms us for recyclable wastes pickups. We operate a door-to-door collection or recyclable waste, through the services of RecyclablePoints registered wastebusters who are uniquely designed electric cargo tricycles to pickup and record quantities of waste collected from registered recyclers”.

He said that they have also mapped our designated drop-off centres called iRecycle Kiosks where post-consumers can on their own access to drop their recyclable waste materials.