Open Call: Register for the USPF Hackathon 2015

#USPFhack

The Universal Service Provision Fund(USPF) carried out a study and identified 207 geographical clusters with an estimated 36.8 million people all over Nigeria who have little or no access to telecommunication services including telephony, Internet and other ICT services. The study outcome (Clusters of ICT Gap) provides an opportunity for innovative Nigerians to create sustainable solutions that would drive equitable ICT access for all.

The Hackathon

USPF is calling out to brilliant software developers, data scientists, UX designers, ICT experts, engineers, strategists, public policy experts and students to get involved and solve this underlying ICT problem within 48 hours by building fully working prototypes of their solutions following specific technical guidelines. Selected winners with outstanding solutions stand a chance to win amazing prizes.

Date:           Friday, September 18^th – Sunday, September 20^th, 2015

Venue:        iDEA Nigeria – 296 Herbert Macaulay Way, Yaba. Lagos, Nigeria

Time:          4pm

What you and your team need to crack:

• Any solution or technology that could extend telecoms services and connectivity into previously unreached areas in Nigeria.

• Visualisation & Natural Language Interface software for the access gap data and other large data sets. Spatial data infrastructure.

• Decision support and network-optimisation software that help Telecom carriers, and other companies to plan their expansion

• Prototype of a web-based data marketplace that allows for natural language search and easy visualization of data (sponsored by iDEA. Special Prize)

• Business models that can bring commercial viability to existing USPF pilot projects, and other rural connectivity projects.

Your prototypes should be relevant to various economic sectors, especially, education, health, agriculture, entertainment and infrastructure.

Prizes to be won:

1^st prize -     N1 million naira + acceptance into incubation program

2^nd prize -    N750, 000 naira + acceptance into incubation program

3^rd prize -    N500, 000 naira + acceptance into incubation program

The prizes, disbursed by iDEA’s incubation programme on behalf of USPF, will enable startups continue developing their prototypes towards a full launch.

                          

How to participate

Visit uspfhackathon.org to register and download guidelines for participation. You do not need to submit an idea to participate in the Hackathon however you are free to do so if so inclined. After registration, you will receive an email confirming your participation.

Join the conversation using #USPFhack on twitter

For further enquiries, send an EMAIL