How FG’s innovative hub is facilitating IDPs resettlement

Communities ravaged by Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East are being rebuilt through hands-on innovations.     As part of federal government’s plans to support its Information Communication Technology (ICT) policy, entrepreneurship and home-grown innovations with the setting-up of private-sector led innovation hubs across the country, the office of the Vice President has added another dimension […]

Communities ravaged by Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East are being rebuilt through hands-on innovations.  

 

As part of federal government’s plans to support its Information Communication Technology (ICT) policy, entrepreneurship and home-grown innovations with the setting-up of private-sector led innovation hubs across the country, the office of the Vice President has added another dimension specifically for the rebuilding of the North-East, devastated by insurgency.

It is tagged NEMakeathon. The innovative hub is expected to bring succour to communities ravaged by insurgency.

The Special Assistant on Internally Displaced Persons (Social Investment) in the office of the Vice President, Mohammed Brimah said about 1.8million IDPs in the North-East are expected to benefit from the hub which is one of the six humanitarian innovative development programmes of the federal government aimed at facilitating their resettlement.

The hub will focus on fostering innovations on humanitarian issues where there are many internally displaced persons affected by violence and armed conflicts.

To set the ball rolling, a “NEMakeathon Challenge” was launched in partnership with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). It is an open and intensive solution creation contest that focuses on crowd-sourcing ideas to provide innovative solutions to address challenges experienced in the North-East. 

The Special Assistant on (Innovation and Entrepreneurship) in the office of the Vice President, Mr Ife Adebayo, said the challenge will bring together the skills and knowledge of a diverse set of individuals and institutions including humanitarians, engineers, academics, and businesses, all committed to addressing the challenges of the people battling insurgency. 

Adebayo added that they would be working with teams of innovators, experts, entrepreneurs and inventors to co-create and refine ideas which will birth early prototypes of processes and products within 60-90 days to uplift the lives of the people at the bottom of the pyramid on six key challenge areas. 

The areas are: Nutrition and Food Security, Early Recovery and Economic Security, Camp Coordination and Management, Protection, Health and Education. He said they are determined to get the best innovative ideas from individuals across the country in finding permanent solution to insurgency. 

The Project Team Leader from the Office of the Vice President, Mary Igbazua explained that the event was to bring together all pre-selected teams to pitch their ideas or solutions to the identified challenges being addressed.

Igbazua explained that the event is an exciting, creative and rigorous hands-on co-creating programme initiated to crowd-source and support brilliant and innovative ideas that can be developed to find solutions to the humanitarian challenges faced by the IDPs and other persons affected in the North-East. 

She said she was surprised by the massive turnout of participants across the country, especially those from the South-South and South-East who were able to travel to Yola, Adamawa State, to pitch their ideas.

She added that she was particularly impressed by an idea pitched by one of the participants, which was the development of a tracking device which will be used by secondary schools so that in the event of a kidnap incident, it would be easy to track victims. She pointed out that from December last year to January, 2018, they received over 8500 entries before it was scaled down to 250 ideas. Thereafter, the panel of judges screened and approved 20 ideas from 150 responses.

The 20 participants have been invited to engage with communities and pay visits to IDP camps in order to understand their conditions. After the pitch compatibility, they will be provided financial support so as to transform their ideas into reality.

Igbazua stressed that the North-East is part of the country and the insurgency challenges should be curbed by all Nigerians and not by people of the North-East alone. 

“Nigeria is one country. The problem we are facing in the North-East is not affecting only people of that area. We must all work to tackle it. So, when I see people coming from Akure and Delta, it is very encouraging,” she stated. 

A participant, Hamza Muhammad Usman, said his idea borders on tackling health issues of the IDPs and that as a graduate of environmental biology, he wants to work on poor environmental management which has been a major challenge. He lamented that due to poor environmental management, IDPs were facing outbreaks of diseases. According to him, his proposal will be able to enlighten and train the people and IDPs, to be aware of the dangers around them. 

Another participant, Mrs Flister Musa, who is a Senior Lecturer with the College of Education, Zing, Taraba State, said her challenge was in education. According to her, as a lecturer she was thinking of how History and Philosophy of Science Education can be used to curb insurgency. She said history of science is very important in the world generally as more impact is felt when one teaches science through creativity than just giving hand-outs to students. Flister said science is being used wrongly on victims of insurgency through Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and felt that it was necessary to visit the camps and create awareness on the dangers in making such explosives. She said scientific literacy is very important as it will help the people to know how and when to usecertain products.

Igbazua further stated that the premiere event was a great opportunity for creative minds to work together to create solutions that touch the very heart of the nation’s social consciousness. 

The NEMakeathon is a collaborative effort initiated by the Office of the Vice President in partnership with the Presidential Committee on North-East Initiative (PCNI), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the American University of Nigeria (AUN).