14-year-old develops mini-encyclopedia to win MTN Kiddies hackathon

Yusuf Molumo, a 14-year-old boy, has been declared the winner of the 2019 MTN mPulse Kiddies Hackathon for creating QuizMe, an educational aggregator app.

Molumo competed with fourteen other children in the hackathon that held on Friday, September 13 at MTN’s head office in Ikoyi.

QuizMe grants young people access to general interest information about Nigeria, such as its states, capitals and slogans; data on key Nigerian and foreign entrepreneurs through short quiz questions.

The other inventions which made it to the top five were: Multiplication quiz game developed by Maryam Sarumoh; Kill the Bats game developed by Khadijah Ahmed; Math Quiz App developed by Shawn Esoimeme and a Quiz application by Jamaldeen Adeleye.

Speaking on the hackathon, Mazen Mroue, MTN Nigeria’s chief operating officer, said: “The Kiddies Hackathon is part of MTN Nigeria’s robust contribution towards growing the capacity, competence and creativity of our children.

“In an increasingly dynamic and innovative world, we recognise the importance of empowering our youngsters with the tools, resources and opportunities they need to create the solutions that will guarantee a brighter future for our great country.”

Participants were provided with work tools, granted access to the hackathon’s portal and received counsel from mentors drawn from Nigeria’s startup scene on applying tech knowledge to tackling real-life problems.

The top 15 projects were selected and invited to the grand finale, with the top five winners pitching their ideas.

The three best ideas were rewarded with various prizes, including shopping vouchers worth N100,000, laptops, headphones, school learning materials and three months mentorship programme with TechQuest STEM Academy.

This article was re-published with the permission of theCable. The original article was written by OLUSEYI AWOJULUGBE

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