The Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) hosted the maiden edition of the Developers Conference and Hackathon in April 2019. The program was a three-part event comprising of the 2019 Deep Dive Session, the 2019 NiRA Hackathon and the 2019 Developers Conference.
The 2019 Developers Conference and Hackathon commenced with the Deep Dive Session; a technical session that introduced participants to the platform they would use during the 2019 NiRA Hackathon and to the theme of the Hackathon. The event was held at the IBM Innovation Center on Monday 9th April, 2019. It was facilitated by IBM. Participants were then shortlisted from the Deep Dive session, and invited to the Hackathon.
The 2019 NiRA Hackathon held on Friday 12th April, 2019 at the IBM Innovation Center. It was an Open Innovation Hackathon where seven groups comprising three developers each, developed websites/apps and competed for the chance to win the 2019 NiRA Hackathon challenge. “The Black Lords” emerged as the winner of the Hackathon and each team member; Adekola Akano, Daniel Babatunde and Olugbolabo Aluko were rewarded with a Laptop and a Laptop bag. The first runner-up group “Transformer” and the second runner-up group “Laughing Camel” were rewarded with cash prizes which were donated by GigaLayer Limited.
The program climaxed with the 2019 Developers Conference which was held on Tuesday 16th April, 2019 at the NGHub by Facebook Center. The 2019 Developers Conference was a technology event aimed at bringing together Developers, Programmers, Software Engineers, Designers and Academics from the IT community in Nigeria to explore new ideas, discuss new technologies, and discover best practices. Speakers at the conference included Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata (Jnr) represented by Wande Adalemo, Founder Institute; Taiwo Akinseye, Ringier Africa Digital Publishing (RADP); Femi Oso, IBM Nigeria; Kendra Nnachi, Facebook; Hanson Johnson, Startup Innovation Hub; Ahmad Mukoshy, Gigalayer; Aderemi Adejumo, COMERCIO Limited.
NiRA was very pleased with the active participation of the public and the huge turnout at the events. This was the long sought after opportunity to engage with the developers community. The developers community seek to find solutions and yield a lot of influence and are key in the determination of the domain names in use for websites. So it was a privilege to gather these set of people together, to find solutions, to network, discuss new technologies and share tips.
We thank all our participants at the Deep Dive, Hackathon and the 2019 Developers Conference. We are grateful to NiRA Accredited Registrars; Upper Link and WhoGoHost as well Stakeholders in the industry; Nigeria Internet Group (NIG) and Service Delivery Partners; Layer 3 who all exhibited at the event. We also sincerely thank all who participated to make these events successful, providing the venues, facilitating at the events, etc.