Team Zeena Platform and Power Bit Crunchers have emerged winners of the Lagos Smart Meter Hackathon. The grand finale of the event held today at the Eko Innovative Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.
In attendance at the event was the Executive Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu. Speaking at the event, he said:
I am absolutely thrilled to be here with you people today because it shows that progress has been made. When I was your age, we didn’t have fancy t-shirts or cool buildings like this, it shows that we are moving forward to achieve a Lagos State that is run by technology.
The Lagos State Government partnered with Africa Fintech Foundry to organise the Smart Meter Hackathon. Winners were announced by the Africa Fintech Foundry via its twitter page.
Also present at the event was Ade Bajomo, Executive Director for Information Technology and Operations at Access Bank, and Chantelle Abdul, CEO MOJEC International.
Ade Bajomo assured that Access Bank will continue to support as evidenced by the creation of the Africa Fintech Foundry. He also opined that Lagos will serve as roots for the full industrialization of Nigeria as a whole.
Zeena Platform won the software category while Power Bit Crunchers won the hardware category. The two teams emerged the overall winners out of ten (10) finalists.
TechNext reported yesterday that 10 finalists emerged for the Lagos Smart Meter Hackathon. The hackathon recorded a total of 274 entries.
Powered by the Lagos State Ministry of Energy and Resources, the hackathon is aimed at finding the most innovative and intelligent solutions for providing affordable electricity meters to communities.
Each of the five participants in the software category yesterday pitched their smart electricity ideas to the panel of judges at the event finals.
About the Winners
Team Zeena developed a smart meter solution to be controlled by mainly the distribution companies (DISCOs). It will feature shared energy hosting directly from the Government Agency.
The team explained that administrators can fix tariffs and usage restrictions to guide electricity consumption by users.
Administrators can control pricing, check working meters, energy consumption and perform oversight functions. Our database will run on blockchain technology and data security of users is assured.
Team Zeena Platform
According to the team, this will monitor the allocation of tokens for subscribers. Administrators can cede control to subscribers or tenants, allowing users to handle their own energy usage.
Power Bit Crunchers won the hardware category at the Hackathon after judges selected their prototype as the most inventive from the pool of entries.
N10 Million Grand Prize
Team Zeena and Power Bit Crunchers won a combined N10 million in prize money from the Lagos State Government and Africa Fintech Foundry at the Lagos Smart Meter Hackathon finals. Each team was awarded a N5 million prize reward for them to scale up their Smart Electricity Meter solutions.
Although an initial winners’ prize money of N7 million had been announced earlier, monetary contributions were made by distinguished guests at the final event which raised the total prize money to N10 million.
The Executive Governor of Lagos state, Babajide Sanwo-Olu contributed an additional N1 million to the prize money. Chantelle Abdul, CEO MOJEC International also added N2 million to the winners’ prize.
It is expected that the innovative software and hardware meter solutions developed by Team Zeena and Power Bit Crunchers will help facilitate the provision of affordable electricity meters to communities within Lagos and Nigeria at large.
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