Friday, December 13, 2019 was the day for Semi Finals for the 1st Artificial Intelligence Ideathon in Nigeria hosted by Rise Networks with the sponsorship support of Terragon Group, Bluechip Technologies, KMPG and Afex Nigeria.
The Ideathon is a major paradigm shift from the regular hackathon and/or pitch programs in the sense that the judges where focused majorly on Ideas that will improve or disrupt existing systems and add value to the society at large than the numbers (business pitch).
Out of 14 semi-finalists, three Ideas emerged and got to the Finals. They are;
- STEBOX which uses Artificial Intelligence for Radiology
- SCOLA uses Artificial Intelligence & elements of Neurophysics for Education &
- DRONAGRO, a Machine Learning Agriculture Project.
Though, they (the judges) value the business prepositions of these Ideas, however, the emphasis was addressing issues in education, healthcare, agriculture and financial inclusion. The selected Ideas reflected the intentions of the Ideathon except the financial inclusion.
Tomorrow, December 17th TheWorkplan2019, the Judges will decide 1st, 2nd & 3rd Place Winners and then these Ideas will be incubated at The Rise Labs for 6months till they become prototypes and possibly eventually metamorphose into Products.
“So proud of our pivot and evolution at Rise Networks from a Youth & Education Development Social Enterprise into a full-fledged Data Science/Artificial Intelligence Powered Learning, Research & Work Readiness Center. Thanks to our amazing Team for working to make this a Success,” posts the Founder of Rise Networks, Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji.
Here are some photos at the Semi-Finals Ideathon session:
Judges of the 2019 Rise Networks Artificial Intelligence Ideathon are;
- Kayode Odeyemi, Head of AI/Cognitive Technology, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated
- Emeka Okoye, Semantic Architect & Knowledge Engineer, Cymantics Nigeria Ltd.
- Kayode Olagunju, Consultant, Transformation Office, MTN
- Yomi Akinyemi, Associate Director, Data and Analytics, KPMG
- Dr. Victor Odumuyiwa, Acting Director, Centre for Information Technology & Systems, University of Lagos
- Tope Ajao, Director, Blue Chip Technologies
- Industry Perspective on Emerging Technologies in Business – Ola Banjo, Corporate Developmemt Lead, Enyo Retail.