The telecommunication giant, MTN says it will liaise with tech hubs to create hackathons to solve local problems. Mr Victor Orie while representing the company gave the highlight on the input made to the Nigerian society at the Nigerian Communications Commission maiden edition of Emerging Innovations and ICT Forum.
He stated that with the change in time and the rave of emerging technologies in the world today, the innovation department of MTN is currently developing an enabling platform for the promotion academic research that can provide sellable and commercial solutions that could solve local problems.
According to him, some years back the company started the universities connect, and created six digital libraries in universities across the nation to harness the knowledge of men with transformational ideas in the academia. ” The innovation department of MTN created the academic research and development challenge where we tasked researchers to come and pitch their ideas”.
Mr Victor Orie said MTN is looking for alliances with innovation hubs to create hackathons to solve local problems even in the academic sector and that the best-selected hackathons will not only be given a prize but their ideas will be incubated for a year.
He stated that this was already in progress as they are making positive moves to connect with tech hubs across the country.
