Peter Ndirpaya, Habib Lawal, David Alozie, Victor Alayande, Muyiwa Iyowu, Onyemaechi Okafor, Okon Etim, Tajinere Sagay, Gbenga Olaoye and Valentine Ubalua are the top 10 geeks to make it to the final stage of the Etisalat Geek Force Internship Contest. They were unveiled at a media event held at the Wheatbaker Hotel, Ikoyi recently.

The Etisalat Geek Force Internship Contest which focuses on two core areas of innovation and customer satisfaction is yet another unique idea from the leading telecoms company. The contest came about as a result of Etisalat’s commitment to not only provide innovative products and services to its customers, but to also provide a platform to help in the development of career opportunities in a creative and exciting way.

At the unveil event, the Chief Executive Officer of Etisalat Nigeria, Mr. Steven Evans said that the five winners of the contest, which started as an online competition designed to recruit innovative and technologically savvy individuals, will have the opportunity of a one year paid internship with Etisalat Nigeria.

Explaining the selection process, Evans disclosed that the competition was designed in the model of a social media reality show that required contestants to upload 2-3 minute videos showing how geeky they were.

“We received over 1,000 interesting videos and went through a rigorous selection process to select 41 videos which we uploaded online for voting. The top 20 videos were then selected based on viewer ‘likes’/votes on our Facebook/Tumblr page, and the 20 contestants went on to face a panel of judges who made the tough decision of selecting the final 10 contestants we have here today,” he said.

He added, “The Top 10 finalists are going to go on and work in five departments in our organization; they will be assigned with a variety of tasks and tests as well as mentors from our senior management team. After six weeks, the top 5 will be the winners of a one year Geek Internship at Etisalat.”