By Ebunoluwa Sessou, Cynthia Alo & Precious Enaike
In a bid to accelerate the commercialisation of homegrown engineering solutions capable of addressing Nigeria’s development challenges, Enactus Nigeria, has established a partnership with several organizations and stakeholders to nurture young engineering talents to transform innovative ideas into practical solutions for national development through the Nigerian Engineering Olympiad (NEO).
The organizations in the partnership include the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Renaissance Africa Energy Company, First Exploration and Petroleum Development Company (First E&P).
The Olympiad was conceived to bridge the gap between engineering education and industry by transforming students’ innovations into commercially viable businesses.
Speaking at the maiden edition of the competition in Lagos recently, Country Director of Enactus Nigeria, Michael Ajayi, disclosed that 375 applications were received from 984 students across 80 tertiary institutions in Nigeria where only 30 teams qualified for the regional stage but only 12 institutions qualified for the grand finale.
At the end of the competition, students from Modibbo Adama University, Yola, Adamawa State, clinched the grand prize of N50 million and a fully furnished engineering building for their faculty with an innovation known as Ubuntu Sapphire, a community-powered rapid alert system that connects households through low-cost devices to instantly notify neighbours and emergency responders during crises.
The University of Ibadan emerged first runner-up, winning N30 million and engineering equipment worth N75 million for its faculty with Aurora Birth, a health-tech suite designed to reduce neonatal deaths resulting from birth asphyxia in low-resource settings.
The University of Jos secured third place with FarmAnchor, a solar-powered, AI-enabled device that helps smallholder farmers detect crop pests, diseases and soil deficiencies early through multispectral imaging and edge-based machine learning. The team received N20 million, alongside N50 million worth of engineering equipment for its faculty. Ajayi said Enactus Nigeria supports forward-thinking organisations in co-creating and implementing projects that respond to real community needs through data-driven solutions, sustainability principles and entrepreneurial thinking.
“We have remained steadfast in our mission to empower young people to use entrepreneurial action to solve the world’s greatest challenges, starting with those in their immediate communities,” he said.
Delivering a keynote address on behalf of the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure, NASENI, Mr. Khalil Suleiman Halilu, the Deputy Director of Engineering Infrastructure Department, Dr. Emmanuel Ajani, said countries that dominate the global economy are not necessarily those endowed with abundant natural resources, but those that continuously innovate, commercialise research and build technology-driven industries.
