507 students from 22 institutions attend Tent Gathering, UNIZIK wins N1m

Paradigm Initiative Nigeria hosted her 4th edition of the TENT Gathering at the Nnamdi Azikwe University, Awka from Tuesday 24th – Thursday 26th November, 2015. The theme of the 3-day event was ‘Learn! Unlearn! Relearn!’ and was attended by 507 students from 22 tertiary institutions across Nigeria.

TENT is platform that showcases, connects, adds value and inspires. The platform fills an existing gap and will also provide a place where budding Nigerian technopreneurs can showcase their work, connect with resources, add value to market and inspire innovation, while building a sustainable business that they will run after graduation.

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TENT features an annual event, and also searches for unconnected tech enthusiasts who have the potential of building on globally accessible technology products or leading a new product development cycle for local companies.

Speakers at the TENT Gathering 2015 event included technology experts and leading entrepreneurs such as Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem (Chairman, Teledom Group), Dr. Adeniran Oluwaranti (HOD, Computer Science, OAU Ile-Ife), Chude Jideonwo (Managing Partner at Red media Africa),  Emeka Okoye (CEO, Cymantics Nigeria), ‘Gbenga Sesan (PIN’s Executive Director) among others.  An addition to this year’s TENT Gathering was the practical training sessions on HTML/CSS, My SQL and Php, Android and Windows development taken by brilliant experts.

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Participants at the TENT Gathering 2015 were encouraged to come up with innovative and relevant technology solutions for Nigeria and for Nigerians.  Dr Ekuwem’s closing keynote speech encouraged the students to obtain a ‘PhD’ in personal restraint implying Prayers, Hardwork and Discipline) in all their pursuits.

The 3rd day of the event, 16 of the 22 participating schools competed for the N1million Taiwo Bankole Ogunyemi prize in presentation of demos of technology products and services they were building to a panel of judges. The Nnamdi Azikwe University emerged winner of the ‘Clash of the Campuses’ competition thereby winning the N1m Taiwo Bankole Ogunyemi. 1st and 2nd runners up were Anambra State University and University of Benin respectively.

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Following the event, 8 institutions indicated interest in the TENT@school club beginning from 2016. The TENT@school club will be established in all Nigerian institutions that indicate interest with the aim of connecting with the students to ICT opportunities whilst still in school. The club will be registered with the school and provided with a constitution.

TENT 2015 was proudly sponsored by the National Information Technology for Development Agency (NITDA), Microsoft Nigeria and Stanbic IBTC Bank

If you would like more information about this topic or further project description on TENT; please visit www.pinigeria.org/tent or write to [email protected]

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