ARM Wraps DAAYTA 2020, Announces ₦12m Grant Winner

The finalists’ pitch event for the 2020 edition of the Deji Alli ARM Young Talent Award (DAAYTA) programme held on March 6^th, 2020 at Four Points by Sheraton, Lagos with Eferobosa Oguegbu of The Paper Packaging Company emerging winner to claim the N12 million grant.

DAAYTA 2020 focused on identifying start-ups with a minimum viable product (MVP) and at least one customer. Having received about 425 applications from start-up entrepreneurs and following a rigorous review process, the top 6 contestants were chosen.

The six presented their pitches at the event in a bid to win the grant of N12 million – an amount that is earmarked to assist the winner to grow his/her business idea and make a sustainable social impact in the community.

The Deji Alli Young Talent Award (DAAYTA) programme is a youth awards initiative founded in 2015 by ARM in honour of its founding CEO Deji Alli.

The goal of the award is to provide support to young entrepreneurs with smart and innovative ideas that have a positive impact on people’s lives and the communities that surround them.

The top 6 finalists in their order of winning at the DAAYTA 2020 were:

• Winner – Eferobosa Oguegbu with her idea of The Paper Packaging Company which provides a biodegradable paper-based alternative that is friendly to the environment.

• 1^stt runner up – Emmanuel Ezenwere whose business idea Arone focuses on revolutionizing courier in Africa by providing a faster, cheaper and more eco-friendly delivery solution using autonomous drones.

• 2^nd runner up – Chidi Nwaogu of Publiseer which at no charge lets independent African creatives distribute their creative works on over 400 digital stores worldwide, and they receive their royalties via African tailored payment methods, which are convenient.

• 3^rd runner up – Debo Odulana with Doctoora e-Health Limited – a platform that aggregates underutilized capacity in existing medical facilities so that healthcare professionals can rent to attend to patients. 

• 4^th runner up – Bright Williams of Neohaul Technologies – a company that provides an AI-powered IoT device that can be attached to trucks to figure out realtime job status/irregularities using AI algorithms.

• 5^th runner up – Ahamefula Uzoma with Livekampus Technologies – a platform that provides students with details on accommodation vacancies off-campus. It allows schools to gather off-campus housing data in real-time and provides valuable insights for stakeholders looking to explore the student housing market for investments.

Speaking about the event, CEO of ARM Jumoke Ogundare said

“I’m glad to say that the event went successfully as envisaged and I say big congratulations to the winner Eferobosa Oguegbu of The Paper Packaging Company and all runner ups. It is our belief that they all have what it takes to make a sustainable impact in their communities and we can’t wait to start recording success stories as we have with the past winners of DAAYTA since its pilot edition in 2015. I also appreciate the entire team; sponsor and partners who have supported this initiative to enable us to achieve the aim of enabling young entrepreneurs with innovative ideas change the narrative in their various communities.”

The team of judges who delivered the sound judgment were: Dr Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien – an Angel investor who has dedicated a major part of her life to building bridges between large businesses and entrepreneurs, helping thousands of people at the bottom of the economic pyramid (BOP) in Nigeria live better lives; Eric Idiahi, a Co-founder and Partner of Verod Capital Management Limited, a private equity firm with over $300M under management focused on making investments in West Africa.

Others include Kola Aina, founding Partner at Ventures Platform, an avid angel investor and mentor to start-up founders; Mitchell Elegbe, founder of Interswitch; Sadiq Mohammed, Deputy Group CEO of ARM Group; Folashade Olusanya, a Partner at Jackson, Etta & Edu and Victor Asemota, the Africa Partner for Alta Global Ventures, a US-based venture capital company.

DAAYTA 2020 was proudly sponsored by Tangerine Life and coordinated by TechnoVision Communications LLC.