Mobile Monday Nigeria is known for gathering mobile developers, techies and enthusiasts in the Nigerian tech industry. The event took an interesting turn this month as MoMoNigeria hosted their first hackathon sponsored by VConnect Nigeria. It was tagged #MoMoHackathon.
The goal of the hackathon was to build a functional mobile and web entertainment application within the given time frame. Nine teams made up of four people per team competed against each other. The teams formed, all named after popular Western movies, were:
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Team Shutter Island
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Team Scott Pilgrim
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Team IP Man 2
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Team Despicable Me
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Team The Ghost Writer
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Team How to Train Your Dragon
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Team Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
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Team Tangled
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Team The Town
The eight hour coding event was fun-filled and the turnout was impressive with a room filled with developers, designers and media representatives. Energy levels were kept up thanks to the food and drinks available, making each person feel like they could code for hours on end, but the day had to end and the winners must emerge.
Mobile Monday Nigeria and VConnect Nigeria worked together to get the finest judges and did a quick online poll also to get votes from friends and family of the team to increase their chances of winning. The prizes were $2,000, $1,000 and $500 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd positions respectively.
The Judges were Gbenga Sesan, Tomi Davies, Vconnect Managing Director, Bankole Oluwafemi and Olasemo Oladipo among others.
After a thorough check of the team presentations, the judges came to conclusion that Team IP Man 2 was the winner. In 2nd and 3rd place, we had Team Despicable Me and Team Tangled respectively. The best app functionality went to Team Shutter Island and they walked home with one year internet subscription for each member of the team courtesy of Visafone Nigeria.
Lesson learned from the winners
Experience matters:
Constance Okoghenum, the co-founder of Tiketmobile came out to present for team IP Man 2, and I knew from that moment that he would be the winner. His presentation skills were on point. He started by asking the audience questions which engaged everyone in the room, then he presented their solution based on feedback from the audience, thereby winning them over. Many of the other teams built apps for the competition but Constance and his team went further to present a business model and assure judges on how the solution will work by implementing Tiketmobile for people to book online.
Don’t forget the front-end:
Team Despicable Me won the heart of the judges with their user interface. No one expected the teams to finish their back-end in eight hours. Some teams presented a lot of how the back-end works and it was like speaking a foreign language.
Save the best for last:
Don’t worry if you present last; make it a good ride for everyone: Team Tangled was last to present but they came prepared and the judges understood that they had something good to offer everyone.
Congrats to the winners, we are proud of you.
Were you at the #MoMoHackathon? Share your thoughts on the event in the comment box.
