Two schools to represent Nigeria at SAGE World Cup in USA

Two schools have qualified   to represent Nigeria at the Student for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship (SAGE) 2019 World Cup billed for California USA in August. The winning schools are Hillside School Gwarinpa and Marist College Yangoji.The winners were unveiled at the 2019 National School Entrepreneurship Exhibition and Award held at the Sheraton Hotels Abuja.

Apart from heading to the United States to represent Nigeria, the two schools also got N500, 000 prize money from the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN). Speaking at the occasion, the special guest of honour Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who was represented by his Special Adviser on SME, Mr. Tola Johnson said the increasing influence of globalization and emergence of knowledge based economy have led to the adoption of entrepreneurship education as a means of linking knowledge and skill with learning for developing critical human capital and mitigate social consequences of unemployment.

He said that socio-economic implications of entrepreneurship and human capital development all over the world is seen as booster for wealth creation, employment generation, living standard, poverty and crime reduction which have direct impact on the national economy.

In his welcome remarks The Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria, SMEDAN, Dr Dikko  Umaru Radda, said N-SEP initiative will harness and harvest entrepreneurial mind set amongst pupils/students in primary and secondary schools towards self-realization and actualization for global competitiveness

The President/CEO SAGE Nigeria, Mr Agwu Amogu, said Nigeria has won the coveted cup eight times in the last 10 years and it can win it againgoing by the performance of the two teams in this year’s competition. This year’s event saw the participation of 17 schools drawn from 10 states of the federation.

The Hillside school initiated the IOT smart irrigation farming aimed at solving the challenges facing the Nigerian agricultural sector which is the lack of efficient or no farm Irrigation system in order to increase the national agricultural output using internet of Things.

With Smart Irrigation, farmers can efficiently and automatically supply water from various sources to their farms in order to produce different varieties of crops in a year, thus sustaining availability of fresh produce all year round ensuring food security in the country and farmers making a higher profit margin.

While the Marist College made a presentation   on their latest business venture, a smart air quality monitor called MARIST-AQM.

The device utilizes various sensors and microprocessors and an IoT platform to detect elevated levels of harmful particles and chemicals quickly and relay that information to users via computers and smart phones in a format that is easy to interpret.

It measures dust, carbon dioxide, various harmful chemicals, temperature, and humidity. It triggers a loud alarm and warning phone calls if air quality, humidity and temperature go extremely above normal.

The device senses the environment several times a minute and typically delivers a one minute average value to a connected analytics solution platform, creating an opportunity for them  to offer air pollution monitoring and control services that deliver dynamic, local information to stakeholders utilizing big data analytics.