Cisco Hosts Three Day Hackathon Competition

In line with its corporate strategy for changing the way we live, work, learn and play through innovation, tech group, Cisco hosted the first edition of its Internet of Things (IoT) Hackathon in Lagos, Nigeria. The IoT Hackathon is a competition that invites creative and innovative students to develop innovative solutions to Nigerian challenges while receiving educational guidance and training.

The Hackathon showcased the creativity of more than 20 students from different universities across. Participants were lectured on how to develop technical skills, how to connect the physical world with the digital world using digitisation and the IoT while developing solutions with rapid prototyping techniques. The Hackathon also allowed students gain first-hand experience in creating circuits with electronics, sensors, and actuators. Participants were also lectured on how to write codes interconnecting nodes using IP networks and cloud applications.



The students engaged in team activities to develop IoT solutions ideas, while exploring electronic engineering. They worked with a combination of Raspberry Pi, Arduino Uno, Grove Pi and some additional sensors. Cisco also provided pitch trainings to the students to help articulate concepts within a limited amount of time. Students then prepared their presentation and demonstration before a jury where a winning team emerged. This year’s winning team stems from Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, but all the students got prizes from Cisco.

The Cisco Networking Academy is Cisco’s flagship CSR programme. It partners with Government, schools, NGOs, colleges and universities to afford students the opportunity to become ICT networking, IoT and security professionals. In Nigeria, alone, Cisco, through the Networking Academy, has trained over 70,000 students (of which 38 percent are female) since its inception. It currently has 56 000 active students and an instructor population of 175 in 132 academies, 6 ASCs and 9 ITCs.