$100,000 awarded to young Ghanaians under Ghana’s 1st Mobile App Hackathon

As part of efforts to provide an opportunity for young Ghanaians to develop digital skills and build businesses in the area of technology, the Ghana Tech Lab has organized Ghana’s 1st National Mobile App Hackathon under the transform Project of the Ministry of Communications with funding from the World Bank.

The Hackathon brought together 48 innovators selected from 240 trained young Ghanaians across 7 regions in the country for a 5 day National Mobile App competition.

The competition saw 10 groups of young Ghanaians awarded with a total of USD100,000 and 2 months incubation opportunity to assist them to develop their ideas.

The aim of this National Mobile App Hackathon was for participants to find and solve business, environmental and social problems through Mobile App Technology.

Addressing the audience, the Deputy Minister for Communications, Hon. Vincent Sowah Odotei emphasised on the importance and determination of Government to create an enabling environment, and infrastructure for tech start-ups and digital skills development in the country.

Ghana’s 1st National Mobile App Hackathon

Ghana’s 1st National Mobile App Hackathon began with applications from over 3000 applicants across the country.

A total number of 240 applicants of which 177 were male and 63 females were selected for an initial one-month training program in partnership with selected hubs around the country.

The best 48 participants from the training were selected to participants in an intensive one-week boot camp and hackathon at the Accra Digital Center.

As part of the 5 day National Mobile App Hackathon, participants were taken through Design Thinking, Business Development and Hacking.

Pitching on environmental, business and social solutions were made to a panel of distinguished judges on the final day by 20 teams.

Ghana’s 1st National Mobile App Hackathon was hosted by the Ghana Tech Lab, a joint venture initiative between Innohub and Kumasi Hive, under the transform Project of the Ministry of Communications and funded by the World Bank.

The top 10 teams were awarded $10,000 each and the top 3 teams also received special packages from Vodafone.

Other Partners and Trainers included The Multimedia Group (media partners), iSpace, Ho Node Hub, Yison Consult, Dansyn, iCode, Hopin Academy and Grassroot Hub.