N90 Million Still Up for Grabs in Wema Bank’s Hackaholics 5.0

Wema Bank, one of Nigeria’s financial institutions and also, a pioneer in adopting emergent technologies and digital tools in banking operations, has maintained a high level of digital excitement since it announced the opening of its portal for registration for Hackaholics 5.0 in April 2024.

The Hackaholic event, with endorsement of training consults like Fate Foundation, is a youth-focused, campus-based startup competition designed to introduce, share, and promote new tech ideas aimed at addressing the innovative challenges of modern banking and business practices.

Wema Bank, the developer of ALAT, an advanced transaction system, continues to lead in innovative product development, aligning with its vision to be a prominent player in Nigeria’s banking landscape and beyond.

Hackaholics 5.0 serves as a platform for young innovators to showcase their technological solutions and contribute to the evolving banking sector.

This fifth edition of the program with the theme “MetaIdea: DigiTech Solutions for Africa’s Prosperity”, has been planned to accommodate a wide range of verticals (or area of focus), allowing participants to compete under any of the admissible verticals and even beyond the listed categories.

The new parameter includes Education, Climate, CivicTech, Insurance, GovTech, Health, Gender-Based Violence, Financial Inclusion, Entertainment, and FinTech. Other relative subjects that identifies with this digital reality are welcome, too.

The guidelines state that participants can submit entries under the mentioned categories or other verticals they choose, highlighting the aim at promoting diversity in problem-solving and maximizing positive impact.

According to Solomon Ayodele, Wema Bank’s Head of Innovation, who doubles as a panelist during the summit, highlighted that the expanded approach to categorizing the range of admissible verticals for this year’s event was a deliberate plan to make it a two-pronged program.

“The theme for Hackaholics 5.0 is anchored on two principal factors—The Meta Idea and African Prosperity. Our goal is to generate unique ideas that go beyond the regular to solve prevalent problems in Africa, promoting the continent’s prosperity. By expanding the range of verticals, we can better accommodate innovative solutions that address diverse real-world challenges.”

“As Nigeria’s most innovative bank, Wema Bank remains committed to fostering innovation and empowering other innovators within the ecosystem. “Our focus for Hackaholics 5.0 is on the brilliance of your mind. We encourage young minds with creative ideas to leverage Hackaholics as a launchpad for their innovations and Startups,” Ayodele added.

Hackaholics, since inception in 2019, has steadily grown to become Africa’s largest gathering of students and young innovators, disruptors, regulators, policy makers, investors and consumers in the Digital Technology space

The competition has taken place in 37 universities of four African countries, attracting over 5,000 applications and has disbursed over $200,000 in grants, which has significantly transformed many lives and business ventures in Nigeria and beyond.

The last edition tagged Hackaholics 4.0, awarded over N50 million to talented young innovators for their unique solutions.

The N90 million of cash prizes for Hackaholics 5.0 will cater for awards covering the following categories:

Winner: N30M Worth of prizes
First runner-up: N20M Worth of prizes
Second Runner-up: N15M Worth of prizes
Women-led team: N10M Worth of prizes
University Stem Endowment: N15M Worth of prizes

To register, competitors are required to access, fill and submit their entry forms at the link provided by Wema Bank’s official webpage.