With 351 days gone, 2018 has had its fair share of tech events. From pitching events and summits to conferences, there has barely been a week when a major event did not take place. Just to give you a reminder of the tech awesome events that happened so far, here are the top 10 tech events of 2018.
TechPoint Build
Techpoint Build is an annual technology conference hosted by online tech blog, Techpoint. The conference is aimed at showcasing local start-ups. It also holds sessions to discusses trends and prospects of the Nigerian tech-ecosystem. Something like a local version of the popular TechCrunch Disrupt.
The maiden edition of Techpoint Build was held on Saturday, 27 January this year and it saw Placements.ng go home with the grand prize of N1 million.
NerdsUnite Conference
Nigerian cable provider, MainOne’s premier event, NerdsUnite was held to provide a platform for attendees to share new industry trends and developments with IT managers and professionals in Nigeria.
Themed “Radical Digital Transformation,” the one-day event was held on the 23rd February. It converged leaders from global, technology companies sharing knowledge on new trends and innovative technologies that are available in today’s business and technology landscape.
#SMWLagos 2018
The Social Media Week Lagos was a week-long programme focused on ideas, trends, insights, business practices and policies that leverage technology to transform industries and communities across Africa.
The event started on the 26th, February and ended 2nd March.
WordCamp Lagos 2018
The first ever Wordcamp for Nigeria was held this year. The event is an informal community-powered event/conference that focuses on everything WordPress. Held on 10th March, the event witnessed the presence of many techies; from casual users, bloggers, business people to core developers to participate, share ideas, and get to know each other and latest trends in WordPress.
Codefest Nigeria
Organised by Ideapreneur, CODEFEST NIGERIA was a Hackathon event that brought together computer programmers, software developers, graphic designers and user interface specialists. Along with industry process experts and professionals, they identified issues and created software solutions as a challenge within 48 hours. The programme which started on March 16th and continued through March 17th received applications from over 50 teams of which 5 emerged winners (Native, Synctask, Open Sauce, Gegnoroc, and Groot).
Coinfest 2018
The “decentralised convention for decentralised currency” CoinFest Nigeria was held on April 5, 2018, in Abuja.
The international gathering of Crypto-enthusiasts, blockchain entrepreneurs, and investors, was hosted in seven (7) countries in the world including Nigeria. It was aimed at promoting the use of digital currencies and blockchain technology through a collaborative initiative.
2018 AR/VR Africa Hackathon
The AR/VR hackathon 2018 was held between April 20th-22nd 2018. Organised by Imisi 3d, the 48 hours event focused on the rapidly evolving immersive technologies of Augmented and Virtual Reality. It was also about design creation, and problem solving.
The event witnessed the presence of software developers, game programmers, UI/UX designers, artists, animators, storytellers and students. They all slogged it out for the cash prize of $1,000 after which team Bad Boys emerge winner of the event.
Diamond Bank TechFest 2018
The maiden edition of Diamond Bank’s TechFest brought together some of Nigeria’s tech enthusiasts and industry stakeholders to explore and propose technological solutions to problems in the society. The event was held on the 15th – 16th May, 2018 at the Landmark Event Centre, Lagos.
The event featured panel sessions, displays from major tech companies, and of course a pitch event. The pitch event saw 10 startups present their ideas, after which Beat Drone, a startup that provides tech solutions using drones and data, was named winner. The startup carted home the N5 million cash prize and N5 million in technical supports from the sponsors of the event.
Techpoint Inspired
TechPoint Inspired 2018 was a one-day event held on May 29 at the 5,000-capacity Pistils Conference Centre, Lekki in . The theme of the event was “The Future is Now.”
Organised by tech media publishing platform, the event brought together the best of tech minds – industry leaders, visionaries, innovators, CTOs, CIOs, engineers, developers, designers, and tech enthusiasts all amounting to about 5,000 participants. They came from all over Nigeria and beyond to explore the tech trends that will shape the future of the tech ecosystem in Nigeria in the years ahead.
TEXPO 2018
Held on 14 July, TEXPO is a technology exhibition that was aimed at providing a platform for young Nigerian Start-ups and tech enthusiasts to interact, showcase their products and pitch to Investors.
The event had industry influencers, Exhibitors, and potential investors present and gave investors a bird’s eye view of the technology ecosystem, its trends, and general direction.
AfricArena Tour – Lagos
AfricArena toured Lagos for a pitch event to select the best startups that would take part in a grand finale on 15 & 16 November in Capetown. Startups were given 3 minutes to pitch innovative solutions to pressing challenges in the travel and energy sectors. The winning startup was TNC Stories. A mobile application, TNC Stories allows you to read five-minute news stories which are made up of short text messages.
The event also featured a panel discussion with stakeholders of the tech ecosystem.
ICTEL Expo 2018
The ICTEL Expo is a professional trade show that focuses on the ICT and Telecommunication industry. Held between 25th-26th July in Lagos, the ICTEL 2018 was no different as it provided attendees with latest digital trends and innovations as well as an excellent networking opportunity for entrepreneurs, start-ups, ICT academics, investors and other big players in the ICT and Telecom industry.
Coworking Conference
Nigeria’s second ever coworking conference held on July 26th in Lagos. Organised by Venia Hub in partnership with Access Bank, the co-working conference showcased new trends in the emerging co-working space.
Themed Coworking: The Catalyst for Innovation, speakers at the conference shared interesting ideas about how to make the co-working space better for the future of Nigerian innovations.
Concatenate Conference
The first-ever Nigerian developer conference was held on the 10th and 11th August 2018 at Zone Tech Park, Gbagada in Lagos.
Tagged “Concatenate Conference”, the 2-day International Developer Conference was organised by top developer, Christian Nwamba along with Microsoft Senior Developer, Sarah Drasner and Cloud Developer Advocate, Brian Holt. It was a free conference for Nigerian developers which engaged them with topics ranging from frameworks to design systems, performance and animation.
.NET Conf 2018
A 3-day virtual developer event co-organized by the .NET community and Microsoft. .NET conference 2018 provided attendees with access to live sessions of streaming that feature speakers from the community and .NET product teams.
The Nigerian session was powered by Brainiacs STEM & Robotics and focused on .NET Core and ASP.NET Core, .NET cloud development with Azure, Machine Learning & AI with .NET, .NET open source projects, Azure.
Lagos Startup Week 2018
Definitely one of Africa’s largest tech gatherings, the Lagos Startup Week, was held between 24th – 30th September. Themed “Getting Started” the event featured a broad range of activities–from master classes to pitch sessions and networking. This includes 12 tracks on how various technologies such as blockchain and AI will directly affect industries, professions, and the way we innovate.
This year’s edition was the 4th edition for this event.
NodeConf NG 2018
A conference for the Node.js community in Nigeria, the event was held to enable Node.js users network and enable widespread adoption as well as accelerate the development of Node.js and other related modules.
Sponsored by Node.js Foundation, the event was held at Zone Tech Park in Lagos in September and featured both local and international speakers.
Data Science Nigeria Bootcamp
The 5-day all expense paid Data Science Nigeria (DSN) Artificial Intelligence Bootcamp took place between October 10th and 14th in Lagos. The programme was aimed at building capacity in the use of Deep Learning concepts in addressing analytical gaps in financial inclusion.
The event saw about 85 finalists from all over the country take part in the event. After which 3 students – Olajide Abdulrazzaq Folarin (Obafemi Awolowo University), Sadiq Aderinto and Stanley Obumneme Dukor (both of the University of Lagos) jointly won the first Inter-Campus Machine Learning competition.
SeedStars Lagos
Organised by Seedstars Lagos, the 10 best startups from Lagos were invited in October to pitch their creative ideas in front of an investment panel and compete to be crowned the most promising seed-stage startup of 2018. After rounds of pitching, DropQue, a recruitment startup emerged winner of the event.
CodeLagos Hackathon Demo Day
The first edition of the #CodeLagosHackathon was held on 1st November. Organised by CodeLagos, the event culminated a month long programming competition and had startups and school students pitch their solutions.
Team Sharkbytes, Codedivas and Secure Wellness Solution emerged 1st , 2nd and 3rd place respectively. They were presented their various prizes of N2 million with incubation, N1 million with incubation and N750,000 with incubation. While the junior category saw Badagry Senior Grammar School emerging first while Government Technical College, Agindingbi and Child Ville School, Ogudu came 2nd and 3rd place repectively.
Africa Fintech Summit
Key stakeholders, investors, and policymakers in the FinTech sector converged in November in Lagos for Africa’s premier FinTech event, the Africa Fintech Summit.
The 2-day biannual summit brought together innovators, investors, policy makers and other key stakeholders in the FinTech sector to debate regulatory policies, compare best practices, and forge new Africa-focused ventures.
TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Africa
The world’s biggest startup competition, TechCrunch startup battlefield was held in Lagos this December. The competition, hosted by popular online tech news medium, TechCrunch, was geared towards looking for “Sub-Saharan Africa’s Most Promising Startup,’.
It saw a total of 15 startups pitch for the grand prize of $25,000. After which Ugandan startup Mscan emerged winner of the event with South African’s Bettr coming in second place.
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