Category: Nigeria

The United Nations launches hacking challenge to bring Nigerian voices to decision-makers

Hackathon to be held from 5-7 February 2018 will award 1 million naira to winner team

BONN, Germany, January 31st, 2018 – The United Nations SDG Action Campaign, in collaboration with Civic Innovation Lab, is calling on Nigeria’s best software skills to contribute to citizens’ engagement with the SDGs and bring the voices of Nigerians to the Government and the United Nations.

 “The SDGs are a new way of thinking and doing. They provide guidelines for how we can, and need, to do things more creatively, more effectively, and more inclusively. Nigerian developers and the innovation community have invested in helping their communities thrive and we want to provide the opportunity to transfer this innovative thinking into action for good, to solve the most important problems that we are facing right now. It is very exciting to bring this program to Nigeria for the first time, and we are convinced the results will have a tremendous impact locally and globally,” said Mitchell Toomey, Director of the UN SDG Action Campaign.

A hackathon to be held from 5-7 February 2018 in Abuja will bring together top innovative minds to design a tool, app or system to enable a more efficient roll out of the MY World survey across the country.

MY World is the UN survey that educates and mobilizes citizens on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and allows them to share their perception of progress made in their countries and regions on those goals of most immediate concern to them in the past 12 months. Through this data collection, the UN aims to create space for every citizen in the world to participate in the discussions and send strong messages to world leaders on what needs to be done to solve today’s most pressing challenges.

“Nigeria is fully committed to faithfully implementing the SDGs and ensuring that no Nigerian is left behind. In spite of the current economic realities, Nigeria has continued to commit funds to the SDGs to devise effective means of ensuring the SDGs are promoted and owned by peoples of the world”, affirmed Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, Presidential Adviser on the SDGs, Government of Nigeria.

The winner of the hackathon will receive One Million Naira and a 3 months’ Community membership at the Civic Innovation Lab to develop the tool that will be used in the roll out of the survey across Nigeria and around the world. Participants can apply through the online application, open until February 1st, 2018.

“Engaging social innovators in tech to take action for the SDGs is key to achieving these Goals. Our collaboration with the UN SDG Action Campaign will enable the Nigerian community of designers, social innovators and entrepreneurs to collaborate effectively in addressing the country’s needs and join the global community of change-makers who are tackling the world’s biggest challenges”, said Adaeze Sokan, Director, Civic Innovation Lab.

ABOUT THE UN SDG ACTION CAMPAIGN

The UN SDG Action Campaign is a special initiative of the UN-Secretary General, administered by the UNDP to create awareness about the 2030 Agenda, empower and inspire people across the world to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while generating political will, and help make the Goals attainable by 2030.

https://www2.sdgactioncampaign.org/

ABOUT MY WORLD 2030

MY World is the UN survey that asks citizens if they are aware of the Sustainable Development Goals, which six of the 17 Global Goals are of immediate concern to them and if the situation of these has got better, stayed the same or got worse over the past 12 months.

https://myworld2030.org/

ABOUT OSSAP-SDGS

The Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on the SDGs (OSSAP-SDGs) was established by the President of Nigeria with a mandate to coordinate national mobilisation, integration, implementation and reporting of the SDGs across levels of government. It also has the mandate to promote partnership and mobilise resources for the SDGs, working with multi-stakeholders including the private sector, civil society and international development partners. In 2017, the OSSAP-SDGs entered into a multi-year partnership agreement with the United Nations SDG Action Campaign.

http://sdgs.gov.ng/

ABOUT CIVIC INNOVATION LAB

Civic Innovation Lab is a social innovation hub focused on harnessing Creativity, Innovation, and Technology to solve our most pressing civic and government issues. We support technology solutions that enhance efficiency and effectiveness in public sector institutions as well as quality of life.

http://civicilab.com/

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Marta Rojas| UN SDG Action Campaign | marta.rojas@undp.org

Priscila Jordão| UN SDG Action Campaign  priscila@sdgactioncampaign.org

The United Nations calls on the top Nigerian hackers to capture people’s voices

​CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: HACK 4 GOOD

Hacking the Nigeria National MY World Survey 2030

Photo: Civic Innovation Lab

Calling all developers and problem solvers with multidisciplinary background – Can your software or creative skills help bring the voices of Nigerians to the Government and the United Nations? The UN SDG Action Campaign in collaboration with the Civic Innovation Lab is organising a hackathon to be held 5-7 February 2018  in Abuja to bring together top innovative minds to design a tool, app or system to enable more efficient roll out of the MY World 2030 survey across the country.

Apply now. TOP 3 solutions will be given seed money to compete for a N1,000,000.00 (One Million Naira) prize and Community membership at the Civic Innovation Lab to develop the tool that will be used in the roll out of the survey across Nigeria and around the world. Have the chance to shape this global project for a better world.

The Hackathon is scheduled to take place from Monday, Feb 5th – Wednesday, Feb 7th at the Civic Innovation Lab located at No 54 Adetokunbo Ademola Crescent, Wuse 2 (Osas & Oseji House) – Abuja, Nigeria, and it is mandatory for all shortlisted candidates to attend.

Deadline for Application is, January 31st, 2018. Participants are to completely fill an online application to be considered.

How to Participate

  1. Applicants must take time to read about the background and solution needed. See more information below.
  2. Participants must completely fill the online application. We will accept the top ideas that will participate in the Hackathon. Participants are free to form teams or work individually. Selection Criteria for the participation in the Hackathon  will be based on:
    • Previous relevant work experience
    • Idea proposal or statement of interest of not more than 150 words
    • completed application
  1. Deadline for application is Wednesday, January 31st, 2018
  2. Only selected participants will be communicated to on Feb 1st, 2018 to attend the Hackathon event from Feb 5th,  2018 – Feb 7th, 2018

Contract  Selection Criteria include:

  1. a) Innovative Approach
  2. b) UI/UX Experience
  3. c) Identified Problem
  4. d) Functional Prototype
  5. e) Presentation Style
  6. f) Scalability
  7. g) Credible Data Reference

Eligibility & Requirements

  1.     Applicants will create prototypes of web, SMS and mobile applications, to address the specific challenge.
  2. Relevant experience, skill and passion is highly appreciated including (but not limited to) GIS mapping, software development, data analysis and design thinking.
  3.  Must be willing to attend the Hackathon from Feb 5th, 2018 – Feb 7th, 2018 at the Civic Innovation Lab Abuja, Nigeria.
  4. Must be willing to develop the prototype to a final product completely by Feb 26th, 2018
  5. All members of the team must be willing to sign an agreement for releasing the final code to public as open source
  6. Must be a Nigerian Citizen
  7. Must be above the age of 18

The Challenge

In March 2018, UN SDG Action Campaign working with the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on the SDGs will be implementing a national roll out of the MY World 2030 survey (myworld2030.org). Hundreds of Corps Members will be handing out ballots and collecting responses on paper. Thereafter we will need to get these hundreds of thousands of responses collected and entered into the global database following this Excel template.

In a previous survey conducted between 2013-15, millions of paper ballots were shipped across Nigeria. Hundreds of people then had to transcribe the survey responses to the database. Despite the tremendous results achieved, the process required money, time and human resources which could be better spent. Our challenge to you is to help find a solution to help us improve the process and time spent in data collection, collation and entry.

We challenge you to find innovative solutions which would both streamline and automate the current process. The solutions could tackle issues such as how to effectively scan and transcribe the responses, the design of the ballots or the vote collecting technique itself. We encourage you to get creative! You may assume that many of the National Youth Service Corps members will have an android  smartphone or tablet, but keep in mind that much of the time, they may be in rural areas, disconnected from internet and other services. The solution must be fully tested and ready to use by the start of March 2018.

Data collected through the app will be written to a MYSQL database hosted by the UN SDG Action Campaign. Permissions to access and write to the database will be given to the finalists. The app will be submitted to the Android Google Play store using the UN SDG Action Campaign account.

The open source solutions provided by the Hackathon will be put in place for the national implementation of MY World 2030 in the first half of 2018. It will also provide a model and system that can be applied to MY World 2030 roll-outs in all other countries, and by partners working at both large and small scale implementation around the world.


About UN SDG Action Campaign

The UN SDG Action Campaign is a special initiative of the UN-Secretary General, administered by the UNDP to create awareness about the 2030 Agenda, empower and inspire people across the world to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while generating political will, and help make the Goals attainable by 2030.

About Civic Innovation Lab

Civic Innovation Lab is a social innovation hub focused on harnessing Creativity, Innovation, and Technology to solve our most pressing civic and government issues. We support technology solutions that enhance efficiency and effectiveness in public sector institutions as well as solutions that enhance quality of life.

Let your passion make a difference!