Technology
Winners Emerge in NCDMB Local Content Hackathon
By Adedapo Adesanya
Five teams have emerged as winners in the Nigerian Oil and Gas Technology (NOGTECH) Hackathon sponsored by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB).
At the event, which was held over the weekend in Lagos, the panel of judges picked projects from Fuel Intellisense, Homefort Energy, Gricd Mote, Kiakia Gas and Airsynq as the most innovative and bankable.
During the grand finale of the programme, which specifically took place on Saturday, 15 semi-finalists made presentations on their innovations.
Each of the five winning teams received a cheque of $10,000 equity-free grant and will proceed to participate in a 3-month incubation programme during which they will get workspace, expert mentors, global partners and market access to the nation’s oil and gas industry, ensuring they become commercial and investor-ready.
Speaking at the event, the Executive Secretary of NCDMB, Mr Simbi Wabote, announced that the board will support the five firms in their product development phase, drawing from the $50 million Nigerian Content Research & Development Intervention Fund.
The board’s support, he said, will go into helping the companies get patents for their innovations and produce prototypes, supporting them to conduct field trials, business start-up as well as provide industry linkages.
He, however, confirmed that the board’s funding would depend on the success of the product incubation phase, stressing that “the goal is to fund bankable businesses, not charities.”
He explained that the sponsorship of the NOGTECH Hackathon is within the board’s mandate, hinting that section 70 of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act empowers “the board to engage in targeted capacity and capability development interventions and conduct studies, research, investigation, workshops and trainings aimed at advancing the development of Nigerian content.”
In May 2020, during the height of COVID-19 lockdown, the board announced the event because it saw the opportunity to create a platform for local creation of digital technologies to solve problems for the Nigerian society.
He added that NCDMB was also keen to stimulate the participants to channel their intelligence and become successful entrepreneurs.
Mr Wabote counselled the five winning teams to be clear about their vision and strategy and retain their passion, stressing that their motivation should not be on making quick financial gains, rather on innovating solutions, making a difference and contributing to the society.
According to him, “All the greatest inventors, particularly in the technology space did not start by looking for money as the objective. They started because they wanted to make a difference and create a change. The prize money is not the key factor. It was meant to bring people together.”
“Once you have a passion for anything that you do, you will be successful. But once you put money first, you will be chasing money and it will be running away.”
He also advised other participants of the programme to stay committed, passionate and driven by value, stressing that there were many other routes to push their ideas to the market and the real winners are defined by the marketplace.
One of the winning teams is Fuel Intellisense, a project that will help fuel stations to get accurate data and avoid loss of revenue through syphoning underground fuel or stealing of fuel from different outlets. The project proposes to install a system that can be viewed remotely from anywhere, showing how much fuel was dispensed per day and what is left. The system will be installed on existing pumps and tanks.
Another project is Homefort Energy, which seeks to make cooking gas affordable and accessible to low-income families, whereby they can pay for gas using the pay as you go model. The initiative seeks to help millions of Nigerians, especially the rural poor to switch from using firewood or kerosene to cooking gas.
Another winning project is Gricd Mote and the proponents explained that it would provide cool shade transportation for temperature-sensitive items in the health sector and the oil and gas space and store them in correct conditions. The product will also provide monitoring for temperature humidity and locations of these items.
Kiakiais is another winning product and it seeks to get gas to the end-users while enabling them to know the quantity of gas left in their cylinders so that they don’t run out of gas in their homes. The system will also be used to order for gas and can be deployed by gas plant owners to manage sales in their plant.
The fifth project is Airsynq, a novel idea of balloon lifted satellite that uses helium to stay in flight up to about 2160 hours or about 90 days and having to come down for 24 hours routine maintenance. This technology can provide a year continuous area surveillance, with an artificial intelligence software that can help international oil companies and security teams monitor all the activities around areas where the balloon is deployed. The balloon goes through a routine of checking each image in real-time and then reports every activity that is happening with sensors that are able to pick out images from an altitude of about 3000 metres and with the balloon lifted satellite operating at about 3000 feet above the ground.
NOGTECH is the first-ever technology Hackathon in the Nigerian Oil and Gas industry and it was organized by the NCDMB in partnership with Learners Support Consultancy Company.
The General Manager, Capacity Building Division NCDMB, Mr Ama Ikuru explained that call for entries was made in June in seven thematic areas: health, asset security, tackling cyber threats, renewable energy, skills and talent management and supply chain. He said that a total of 630 entries were received at the close of submission in the third week of July.
The entries were subjected to two stages of review, first from internal NCDMB Judges and then from external judges, before the top 15 teams were selected for the three-day Hackathon.
He revealed that the board was also working on other projects in support of technology development and innovations in the Oil and Gas Industry. Some of the initiatives include the sponsorship of ENACTUS – Science and Technology Innovation Challenge; Establishment of modern Research & Development Centres of Excellence; Upgrade of Laboratories in Universities and Technical and Vocational Education and Training; Active participation in Technology Expos and NCDMB Research Product Development framework to help inventors attain market penetration.
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
An additional $200,000 will be invested in Artificial Intelligence (AI) media literacy initiatives across Sub-Saharan Africa, TikTok announced during its third annual Sub-Saharan Africa Safer Internet Summit in Nairobi, Kenya.
The platform hosted government officials, regulators, online safety partners and industry leaders for the event, reinforcing its commitment to collaborative approaches to online safety.
The funds will be provided in ad credits to help support local organisations in the region to expand AI media literacy.
This investment builds on the company’s initial $2 million AI Literacy Fund, launched in November 2025, which awarded 20 global non-profits to create content that boosts public understanding of AI.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, TikTok initially supported three organisations to advance digital literacy and combat misinformation.
“With the rapid advancement of AI, we are committed to educating our community online, so they feel empowered to have responsible experiences with AI, whether that’s as viewers or creators.
“We are partnering with trusted local organisations that communities already know and rely on, because their expertise and deep local connections are essential to making AI literacy programs truly impactful,” the Global Head of Partnerships, Elections and Market Integrity at TikTok, Mr Valiant Richey, stated.
Earlier, the Head of Government Relations and Public Policy for Sub-Saharan Africa at TikTok, Ms Tokunbo Ibrahim, said, “As we host the 3rd Annual Safer Internet Summit here in Kenya, our mission is clear: to share learnings, insights, tackle common challenges and collaboratively advance actionable solutions that protect citizens online.
“By bringing together a diverse coalition of policymakers, tech innovators, and creators, we are ensuring that the conversations we have at this Summit are all-inclusive and lead to a more resilient digital landscape.”
The summit featured expert panels and discussions on critical topics, including TikTok’s Trust and Safety efforts, protecting young people online, and policy frameworks for responsible AI governance.
A key highlight of the event was showcasing how TikTok uses AI to transform how people share their creativity and discover new passions, while ensuring the community remains safe through transparent and responsible AI practices.
The platform also shared more about how recent advancements in AI are helping the platform moderate content faster and more consistently at scale, by improving automated moderation and empowering human teams with better moderation tools.
With over 100 million pieces of content uploaded daily to TikTok, these advances, which work alongside human moderation teams, are helping get violative content down faster, reducing the likelihood of the community seeing it.
According to the latest Community Guidelines Enforcement Q3 2025, TikTok removed over 14 million videos across Sub-Saharan Africa, with 96.7 per cent detected and removed proactively using automated technology, underscoring TikTok’s commitment to proactive moderation and swift action.
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The winners of the Technovation 4.0 Hackathon, themed The Wicked Hackathon, organised by Interswitch, have been given N10 million in cash prizes for their efforts.
At the one-day finale event, which took place on Wednesday, March 4, 2026, at the Interswitch Innovation Lab and Co-Working Space, the money was shared among the top teams whose innovative solutions stood out during the rigorous multiple phases of the competition.
Team Quickteller Fashion emerged as the overall winner, securing the grand prize of N4 million for a solution that impressed judges with its originality, practicality, and strong strategic relevance. Team Kampe claimed second position with N2.5 million, while Team Stable placed third, receiving N1.5 million. Up to N300,000 worth of cash prizes were also awarded to the fourth, fifth and sixth qualifying teams.
For nine months, cross-functional teams from across the organisation collaborated to conceptualise, validate, develop, and refine solutions, moving from raw ideas to minimum viable products (MVPs) with ready-to-market potential and deployment across the business.
The atmosphere at the grand finale reflected that of preparation and anticipation as the top 9 teams presented their innovations through live demonstrations and detailed pitches, fielding questions from a distinguished panel of judges before the top three winners were selected. Each presentation highlighted rigorous validation processes, thoughtful market considerations, and a strong emphasis on measurable impact.
While many of the solutions remain confidential due to their strategic relevance, the diversity and depth of ideas showcased during the hackathon’s final underscored the organisation’s growing culture of intrapreneurship and structured innovation. The projects illustrated how technology-driven thinking can unlock efficiencies, strengthen operational capabilities, and open new pathways for growth across the digital payments and commerce ecosystem.
“Technovation continues to reflect who we are as an organisation, bold, forward-thinking, and deeply committed to building impactful solutions from within. Over the years, we have seen ideas conceived during this programme evolve into meaningful capabilities that strengthen our ecosystem.
“The passion, discipline, and ingenuity demonstrated by our teams this year reinforce our belief in the power of African innovation to solve complex challenges and shape the future of technology on the continent,” the Chief Innovation Officer for Interswitch, Ms Adaobi Okerekeocha, stated.
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The language support for its AI Search features has been expanded by Google, with the inclusion of Yoruba and Hausa in Nigeria.
This is part of a broader effort to make AI more inclusive across the continent, with support now extending to a total of 13 African languages.
Under the AI Overviews and AI Mode, speakers of both Nigerian languages can utilise AI-powered Search experiences in their mother tongue for quick summaries and conversational exploration.
This means existing AI features in Google Search are now accessible to people like the student in Kano asking a question in Hausa, and the trader in Ibadan seeking advice in Yorùbá.
By addressing language barriers, this update ensures that technology reflects the identity and culture of the people it serves. With this expansion, more people can now use AI Mode to ask complex questions in their preferred language, while exploring the web more deeply and naturally through text or voice.
The 13 languages now supported across Africa include Afrikaans, Akan, Amharic, Hausa, Kinyarwanda, Afaan Oromoo, Somali, Sesotho, Kiswahili, Setswana, Wolof, Yorùbá, and isiZulu.
These languages were chosen based on the vibrant search activity across the continent, ensuring that our AI experiences reach the communities that need them most.
Commenting on the development, the Communications and Public Affairs Manager for Google in West Africa, Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade, said, “Building a truly global Search goes far beyond translation — it requires a nuanced understanding of local information.
“With the advanced multimodal and reasoning capabilities of our custom version of Gemini in Search, we’ve made huge strides in language understanding, so our most advanced AI search capabilities are locally relevant and useful in each new language we support.
“This is about ensuring Nigerians can converse with Search in their mother tongues, making information more helpful for everyone.”
To use AI Overviews and AI Mode in the local language, users must open the Google app on an Android or iOS device, or via the Web. They are required to tap on AI Mode within the Search experience. Thereafter, they can type or speak the question in their preferred language, such as Hausa or Yorùbá, and let the AI guide the journey.
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