Oguntade Temitope and Olofu Mark wins ISPON software cup 2012, gets N3.25m prize

                          Oguntade Temitope with Governor Imoke of Cross river and ISPON President


After  a keenly contested software competition involving 17  schools from Nigerian tertiary institutions on Tuesday night at the  African knowledge city,  Tinapa, Calabar, Cross River state, two software incubators  from the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State won the 2012 national software Innovation competition  organized for students in Nigerian tertiary institutions.
The second national software conference and competition with the theme: “Cloud Computing and the future of software Nigeria”  was organized by the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria, (ISPON) and hosted by the Cross River State government.


The software code warriors, Oguntade Temitope and Olofu Mark from the department Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mathematics and Computer Science respectively had during their presentation before panel of judges showcased innovative solution titled : One School, a  one-stop solution that provides generic and unified solution to support e-learning, e-teaching and e-school administration.

                                                      Oguntade with his Trophy

Apart from the two million naira from the Cross River State government won by the team  for emerging the overall winner, the  team also received additional one million naira from the state government for winning  Prof. Cleopas Angaye Cup as  the best Open Source Software Developer of the Year.Similarly, the team  also won Prof. Cleopas Angaye Cup for the best Open Source Software Developer of the Year worth two hundred and fifty thousand naira to be awarded by the Director-General of National Information Technology Development Agency, (NITDA). This brings the total prize award to three million two hundred and fifty thousand naira.

Additionally, the Cross River state government gave the first runner-up and every category winner of the competition one million naira each.

According to ISPON, Software licenses are major challenges to both software industry and the end-users. It is therefore important that conscious efforts are made to develop solutions that are progressively made free to the society irrespective of the users’ platform. This category of award recognizes the best solution developed using non-proprietary platform.

With excitement the Governor of Cross River State Government, Senator Liyel Imoke while presenting the award told the gathering on Tuesday night that the winners represent a young generation that can compete with anybody in the world. “Everyone who participated in this process is a champion” the Governor said. This is great hope for the future.

We see no industry that has propelled economic growth than software. There is no greater infrastructure you can develop like human being.“Today  provide you with real opportunity to express yourselves.  We look at you as generation of hope. No matter how brilliant you may be in software development, that brilliance must be put to use to the benefit of mankind.

You are the future bill gates. You are our great leaders. Through you, Nigeria can be the great; leading technology of the world” he said.

For the ISPON President, Chris Uwaje, the software code warriors represent new Nigeria. “Go into the international job market and be what you want to be”.

ISPON and Cross River State Government are proud of you. Nigeria is proud of you. Your future begins here” the Oracle said  to the students.

Reacting to the award, the team leader of the overall winning team Olofu Mark with excitement thanked ISPON and the Cross River State for honoring them.“This is a big event and i’m extremely excited we are a part of it. Contesting with dozens of teams and innovators and then emerging as overall winner to me is a very big impression.   I’m grateful to God.

“Knowledge and skill gained from this competition will go a long way in helping me to become software entrepreneur in the knowledge society” he said.Other award categories and winners will include the following:

Best Mobile Software Application Developer of the Year:This category of award is for the mobile application that has the capacity to positively impact the Nigerian society. Evaluation was limited to only applications that operate on mobile devices (i.e. iOS, Android, RIM, Palm, and Mobile Windows).

The following factors were considered in determining the winner: relevance to society, quality of design, openness, accessibility and originality.

Winner:Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife (Team I)Project: DoTheMaths – Mobile Game ApplicationTeam Members: Akinboyewa Akindolani, Abdul-Rahma Shitu, Nnanna Eze

Project description:DoTheMaths is the mobile application that supports informal self-learning of arithmetic computations using basic mobile phones.

Dr. Ernest Ndukwue Cup for the Most Creative Software of the Year:The future of the Nigerian software will thrive on originality that can positively affect the world. This award recognizes the most creative and original solution presented by the contestants.

Winner:Federal University of Technology, AkureProject: Eye Drive (Security & Driving System)Team Members: Olaoluwa Aboluwarin, Mofesola Banjo, Oluwadara Oladapo

Project description:Eye Drive is a mobile application that provides voice recognition support to drivers on the road.  It also provides continuous real-time audio and video surveillance on property.