It was a night of glitz,glamour and dreams come true at the Eko Hotel in Lagos, the venue of the #EtisalatPrizeForInnovation grand finale event yesterday.
Tobiloba Ajibola, a fashion designer won the Ideas category with her #DressbyAloli idea to create an online platform for women to create and order bespoke clothing for weddings, owambe parties(very popular in Nigeria) and other events without worrying about missed tailor deadlines, and other common problems they face. At a pitch event lastweek, Tobiloba whose current team is 3 person strong including herself, identified her potential market as a 3 trillion naira fashion retail market targeting tech savvy and other women who face the problem she is trying to solve.
The prize money for the ideas category is 2million naira and will help Tobi and her team create an online platform and also invest in machines and talent to help ensure the quality of the service.
Adegoke Olubusi and the Onemedicalng team won 5 million naira in the products category to scale their digital cloud-based health records platform. The platform is highly user-friendly, cloud-based and works on any device including a dedicated android app. Hospitals sign up for free and patients pay a small fee of N500 to create their record.
Speaking about the winners, Adia Sowho, Director, Digital Business at Etisalat Nigeria said; “Judging the Etisalat Prize for Innovation this year wasn’t easy. We had to cut the entries from over 500 to a final list of 10 in the Ideas and product categories. I am happy for the Entrepreneurs behind #DressesbyAloli and One Medical, our winners for this year. #DressesbyAloli is particularly close to my heart as it solves a problem that myself and a lot of women have with an online bespoke clothing service that if well executed will be a big success. The team behind One medical have done some amazing work with their digital health records platform and the judges were very satisfied after going through series of product demos and hearing them pitch”.
Speaking about why Innovation is important to Etisalat, Matthew Willsher, CEO, Etisalat Nigeria said; “Innovation differentiates leaders from followers and is the core of growth. Nigeria and our industry are both institutions and entities that require growth, taking advantage of technology change with a lot of creative thinking and new ways of doing things to help us meet the needs of society. Innovation helps us run things more efficiently, meeting the education, health care, lifestyle and communications needs which makes life easier for people. The Etisalat Prize for Innovation is our initiative to reward innovation and we hope it will catalyze the innovation spirit in Africa”.
Easy status also emerged as the most innovative value added service winner at the event.