In a bid to encourage the youths to redirect the energies in productive ventures, Busicon Nigeria Limited, an indigenous IT firm with over 33 years existence, has initiated a youth development contest tagged, ‘The App Challenge’. The contest is already open and winner will take home N1 million aside other benefits that are accrued from the project.
It is a solution driven contest that allows enthusiastic youth come up with fantastic ideas, which will be in form of solutions to prevalent challenges in the business terrain.
Would-be contestants are required to write their ideas on designated page or website, which will be sieved and successful applications picked for participation in the competition.
As the project advances, contestants will be invited to defend their ideas and show the workability of such indigenous proposal, while a winner will be announced at the end of the rigorous task this June.
The contest is open to people between 18-35 years age bracket who are street-smart, independent-minded individuals, employed, self-employed, students who are willing to make great impact in the app development industry and individuals who are looking for the golden opportunity to be discovered.
At a press conference held recently in Lagos to explain the concept of the Busicon App Challenge contest, Damilola Akanbi, director, marketing/sales, Busicon Nigeria Limited, said the initiative aims to gather and helping youths to direct their energies in positive ventures such as ICT project developments.
“Busicon App Challenge is an initiative aimed at using the youths to solve problems in the society instead of violence”, Akanbi explained.
On the authenticity of the initiative and prize tag for the winner takes-it-all contest, Akanbi, ”The Busicon App Challenge is original and the right has never been owned elsewhere. We are going to present N1 million cash prize to the overall winner”.
He lamented that youths devote much attention to entertainment rather than educative programmes and called for a change of orientation for sustainable youth development starting with the call for entries for the contest, which is focused on problem-solving ideas.
Also speaking at the conference, Yetude Irewude, the company’s director of business development, said the management made observation that the youths would play a pivotal role in taking Busicon to the next level through participation in the app challenge.
“We realized that the youths are the vehicles that will take our country Nigeria and Busicon to the next level. That is why we decided to come up with the app challenge initiative to get the youth solve problems in ICT.” Irewude said.
She added that the initiative is Busicon’s corporate social responsibility designed to give back to the society by empowering the youths.
Listing the criteria for choosing the overall winner, Ayodele Akanbi, director of technical services of the company, explained that application must be workable, implementable, as well as, easy to finance.
On judges for the competition, Akanbi disclosed that they include heads of businesses and application development experts.
However, the rationale for the contest is based on Busicon’s survey, which discovered that the country has a lot of youths with ideas in ICT, but lack the platform to showcase their potential to the world. So, the app challenge provides them with a great opportunity.
