By Aduragbemi Omiyale
Ten startup finalists of the 2024 Zenith Bank hackathon have received the sum of N77.5 million in cash prizes to help them scale up their businesses.
The winner of the competition, Jump n Pass, went home with N25 million at the fourth Zenith Tech Fair held on Thursday, November 21, 2024, at the Eko Hotels and Suites, Lagos.
The self-checkout technology solution reshaping the retail landscape in Africa emerged as the winner of the over 1,700 contestants who participated in the hackathon.
In addition to the cash prize, the company and others will enjoy a six-week mentorship and incubation programme designed to help them grow and scale effectively, which will run from December 2024 to February 2025.
The first runner-up, CreditChek, a credit and verification service provider which leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) and open banking to streamline income and credit history verification for financial institutions, won N20 million and a mentorship programme, while the second runner-up, Salad Africa, a start-up which offers seamless integration of credit products for digital platforms and software companies won N15 million as well as a mentorship programme.
Other finalists who took home N2.5 million each included Regxta, CashAfrica, Middleman, Messenger, Pocketfood, Famasi Africa, and Kitovu.
The chief executive of Zenith Bank, Ms Adaora Umeoji, while speaking at the fair themed Future Forward 4.0: Embedded Finance, Cybersecurity and Growth Imperatives – The Impact of AI, explained that, “This prestigious annual event was created to empower and nurture young fertile minds.”
She expressed optimism that the programme will “produce the likes of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk” in the near future.
In his goodwill message, the Governor of Lagos State, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, called for a global approach to doing business in the country.
“What we need to do is to be able to enhance our product and services in order to compete in the world. We can’t continue to act locally, we need to think globally.
“Anything that we’re doing now, we need to be able to know that we are not just serving a local market, we actually want to serve the global market, and that’s why I’m glad that consistently, for the past four years, I have kept up with the Zenith Tech Fair.
“I am sure 5.0 should be bigger and better than what we have today, but for us as a government, what we need to do is to continue to use platforms like this to reassure you of our readiness to provide an enabling environment for your ideas and innovative solutions,” he stated.