Two UIMSAites, Toba Ajayi and Godson Chukwuemeka, and a Medical Laboratory Science student, Samuel Ogunleke, members of Team Dokia emerged as the Second Runner-Up at the fifth edition of the Wema Bank Hakaholics preliminaries for the UI Pitch Center on Thursday, August 15th, 2024 at the KAAF Auditorium, Department of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Ibadan.
The three-day event, spanning Tuesday to Thursday, featured bootcamps and pitching competitions for local and novel start-ups to support top innovative ideas to solve real-world problems.
The competition featured a boot camp session where the intricacies of founding sustainable start-ups were discussed. Speakers included Rosemond Philip-Othihiwa, a start-up and corporate lawyer and mentor at Google Startups Africa and Olamide Oladele, a Team Lead of Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility at the Wema Bank Plc. They spoke on understanding business venture types and attracting the right investors for start-ups.
The second day featured delivery of a 90-second elevator pitch from about 50 teams who registered for the competition, out of which 30 qualified for the pitch deck presentation on the final day. The 30 teams that competed included; Dokia, VarsityEdge, EduGaze, GbalePrime, TropicalTest, JunkYard, KaweGPT, HealthMoni, ElixirBrand, HealthGuardian, CareBrij, SportRay, iGoal, CivicPulse, BelTechnology, SimStudios, Campus-MarketPlace, NetXus, Medwaka, LowBudgetEngineers, LostButFound, AlphaGuard , amongst others.
The final day, Thursday, featured the 30 qualifying teams presenting a 4-minute pitch deck, whose presentations were then reviewed by the Panel of Judges. Team Dokia which consists of two UIMSAites; Toba Ajayi (the team lead), and Godson Chukwuemeka, both in their second year, together with Samuel Ogunleke, also a second-year Medical Laboratory Science student emerged second runner up, Team GbalePrime and Health4Moni emerged the First Runner-Up and Female Lead Start-up respectively, while Team EduGaze emerged the overall winner.
Speaking to UIMSA Press, the Team Lead of Dokia, Toba Ajayi said; “As a team, we are excited about winning the regional competition and moving on to the grand finale. However, what excites us more is the fact that we are one step closer to making impacts in the lives of potentially millions of youths across Africa.”
Recall that the Preliminaries are to be held at various pitch centres (mostly university campuses), with top teams from each centre competing at the Grand Finale, in Lagos.
PS: All photo credit belongs to the organizers..
Sidiq Moshood