Nigeria’s next generation of AI founders may not emerge from venture studios or Silicon Valley accelerators. Instead, they could come directly from university classrooms, hackathons, and late-night coding communities.
That possibility crystallised at Squad Hackathon 3.0, organised by HabariPay—the fintech subsidiary of Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc (GTCO)—which concluded recently at the GTCentre in Lagos.
The competition gathered hundreds of student developers tasked with building technology solutions for real economic and societal problems. But Squad Hackathon 3.0 distinguished itself from typical university innovation contests by prioritising deployable systems focused on financial inclusion, artificial intelligence, and productivity infrastructure.
Bridging the informal economy
The standout project came from Team Block X of Obafemi Awolowo University, which developed “Guild,” an AI-powered platform connecting informal workers to formal financial services.
