Why Beat Drone Won the 2018 Techfest Awards

The 2018 Techfest event took place in Lagos Nigeria from 15th to 16th May this year. The two days event reached its climax during the Battle of the Hub challenge. It saw the participation of five tech hubs from the Nigerian geographical regions. The hubs included Pan-African accelerator and fund in its early stage Venture Platform. The platform is actively involved in developing, funding and supporting African incubators. Also, present was Ibadan based Wennovation Hub. This is a pioneer innovation accelerator with offices in both Ibandan and Lagos. The third one was Kaduna based Colab startup. It offers a partnered community for entrepreneurs, creative, startups, and innovators.

Another participant was Passion Incubator based in Lagos. This is a technology accelerator and incubator that invests and supports Nigerian startups.  Also present was Roar Nigeria that is based in Enugu. It is a tech startup incubator that focuses on universities. It was founded by University of Nigeria Nsukka’s management. It mainly aimed at bolstering innovation among non-students and university students.

Beat Drone, a company that offers drone services for farmers was the overall winner at the event. It won a cash prize worth N5 million and technical support worth N5 million that came from the event sponsors. The sponsors were Visa, Deloitte, Beat FM, Interswitch, MTN Nigeria, Diamond Bank and Microsoft. Beat Drone is amongst the Passion Incubator’s feature startups. Other feature startups are Enugu based Afrimash, Abuja based GeroCare, Pronov from Enugu, Enugu based Peepscreen, Lagos based Riby, TrillzApp from Enugu, Kaduma based and SchoolMo, Payant from Kaduna.

Beat Drone’s co-founder Odionye Confidence highlighted to the panel how the startup will use the cash prize. He said that the startup will use the money to buy new drone facilities and to expand its services across the country. Diamond Bank’s CEO Uzoma Dozie Techfest’s aim is to equip people with education technology to help them understand how innovation works. Additionally, they hope to make the event bigger each and every year.