BY: Oluka Ikenna
As part of efforts designed to spark creativity in young people while pushing their coding capabilities, Facebook has partnered with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and AfricaTeenGeeks to organise this year’s edition of Hackathon4justice.
The two-day event which took place on March 22 and 23, brought together students from selected secondary schools and tertiary institutions. This saw them partner with local leads from Lagos Facebook Developer Circles, who provided support and guidance throughout the event, which was aimed at finding technological solutions to help uphold justice and promote the rule of law.
Speaking on the initiative, Facebook Developer Program Manager, Chimdi Aneke said: “Facebook grew out of a hacker culture and thrives by promoting innovation on new platforms. Hackathons are longstanding traditions here at Facebook, so we’re thrilled to bring this tradition to Lagos where we will stay up all night hacking and learning.” he said.
On the ground to inspire and mentor the young coders were Iyinoluwa Samuel Aboyeji, Co-founder of Nigerian startup Andela and founder of Flutterwave and a number of Software Engineers from Facebook.
Out of 400 applications from university and school students across Nigeria, 55 university undergraduates and up to 15 school children were invited including students from Caleb University, Covenant University, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ladoke AkintolaUniversity of Technology, University of Lagos, Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Benin, Babcock University, as well as Yaba College of Technology.