Determined to encourage tech education among secondary school students, Queensland Academy, Lagos has organised the inaugural Hackfest festival.
The two-day event organised by students of Queensland Academy, which is the first in the history of the school, had in attendance, students from top schools in Lagos, professionals, and major players in the Information, Communication, and Technology industry from all over the world.
Jacob Ajala, visionary of the Queensland Hackfest programme, said the event was necessary for schools particularly in the wake of the present difficulties confronting the various sectors of the economy.
Ajala said the idea of the Hackfest was to explore and deploy technology to solve the basic problems confronting the economy. He added that participating schools were presented with problem statements to solve within a specified timeframe.
Folakemi Okunoren, supervising director of Queensland Academy, said the students demonstrated leadership and critical thinking skills at young stage in life by organising the event.
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She described it as a show of the core values that the school stands for which include respect, responsibility, initiative, passion, enthusiasm, adaptability, and team spirit.
According to her, the programme was particularly audacious because it teaches team spirit, project-based learning initiative, creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, and the innovative mindset required to build tomorrow today.
“For the future to be truly result-oriented there is the need to create it today, and that is the cultural value that drives Queensland Academy and the foundation upon which its scholarship is erected,” Okunoren said.
She further commended the bravery of the students and challenged them to bring their creativity to bear in the course of the competition.
Viqaruddin Surki of IBM India, keynote speakers from India, and Sudeshna Chakraborty of Sharda University, provided the much-required impetus to ignite insights in all stakeholders, especially the contestants.
Femi Adeniyi, chief executive officer, Simplex Solution Limited, one of the many sponsors of the programme, expressed satisfaction with the participants, and encouraged them to see themselves as winners irrespective of the outcome of the event.
At the end, the team from Grace Schools emerged the overall best with a grand prize of N100,000; the second position went to the team from ST & T Schools with N50, 000 prize money while and a team from the host school, Queensland Academy, came third with N25,000 prize money.
