Tiamiyu Mubarak Damilare and Uwaje Kesther finished second at the IDEA Hackathon 2013 competition held at Tinapa Knowledge City in Calabar. Below they share a bit about themselves and their future plans.
Governor of Cross River State, Senator Liyel Imoke sandwiched between the second place team (Right) and the winning team (Left) as they showcase their cheques (Click photo to enlarge)
What are your plans for the future?
The production of a Pilot Prototype and commercialization of the Application/solution, its effective deployment and utilization to solve the problems of our people is our core objective and the goal of the Application development
What role did each team member played during the Hackathon?
Tiamiyu Mubarak Damilare: (Programmer, Software Layout Design, Software Design and Testing, Business Plan – Formulation and Drafting, Spokesman)
Uwaje Kesther: (Program flow Architecture, Graphics Enhancement, Code Validation, Software Tester, Multimedia adjustments, Business Plan – Formulation, Drafting Proof-Reading)
What are the key differentiated features of the app you developed at the Hackathon?
• Ingenuity and Originality
• The user-experience of the game and its impact on the positive instinct of the player
• Localization of the app functionalities in our native dialects
What were the specific challenges faced at the hackathon, and how were those challenges solved?
Our first challenge was the absence of Hackathon Tool Server and Internet connectivity at the Hackathon Event Centre.
Solution: we had to use our own mobile phone subscriptions to serve as mobile internet hotspot for our team and so other teams before the organizers looked into the matter
Secondly, the absence of neutral Laptop/ PCs to work with. We believe in such events the neutral Laptops/PCs to be used should be provided by the facilitator and not be the individuals’ PCs so as not to give room for some teams to leverage on some of their finished projects and present them as new.
However, this will be conditioned on the availability of a Central Server for comprehensive Tool access to ALL contestants. And also for accurate documentation of the developed solutions for the subsequent set of people coming.
Solution: we had to use our own PCs.
What are the lessons learned and advice to growing software developers community?
We learnt the power of dedication and focus. What could have taken months to develop, we developed within 42 hours of concerted non-stop effort – motivated by the reward and incentive expected from the Hackathon. It brought out the spirit of achievement through organised Team hard-work.
• We Learnt how to multi-task.
• We learnt the logic of how to think locally to the needs of Nigerians.
Our Advice for the Software community is for us as a people to believe in ourselves and work towards solving our problems because the solutions are right around us.
