SINGAPORE: A Commission has appealed to investors, telecommunications operators and other private-sector players to support technology start-ups developing solutions for persons with disabilities, saying funding and commercial partnerships are needed to move promising innovations beyond the prototype stage.
The appeal came on Thursday in Abuja at the grand finale of the fourth edition of the NCC Hackathon Live Show, where young Nigerian innovators showcased technology solutions developed around the theme, “Technology Without Barriers: Innovative Solutions for Persons with Disabilities.”
The commission said while the hackathon had provided a platform for innovators to develop and demonstrate their ideas, sustained private-sector backing would be critical to transforming the solutions into products that could be deployed and adopted on a wider scale.
The two-day competition, which started on Wednesday, attracted 20 contestants, with five teams — Sora, Gyronics, Aditus, Clear Signal and Ikor — making it to the final stage.
Speaking at the event, the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the NCC, Aminu Maida, said Nigeria’s young innovators represented an important part of the country’s economic future and should be given the necessary support to turn their creativity into commercially viable enterprises.
Maida, who was represented by the Executive Commissioner for Stakeholder Management, Rimini Makama, said the solutions presented at the competition showed that innovation could be used to tackle practical barriers confronting persons with disabilities.
“Nigeria’s next major oil field is not buried in our soil or offshore in the Atlantic Ocean, it’s here, it’s in this room today,” he said.
He said the commission deliberately focused the hackathon on persons with disabilities because millions of Nigerians still encounter obstacles in accessing digital services and participating fully in the digital economy.
According to him, the challenges include the cost of digital devices, online platforms that fail to adequately incorporate accessibility features, gaps in digital skills and the shortage of affordable assistive technologies.
Maida said estimates cited by the World Bank indicated that about 25 million Nigerians experience at least one form of disability, while around 3.6 million face significant difficulties in functioning.
He further cited the International Labour Organisation as reporting that persons with disabilities were twice as likely to be outside employment, education or training.
The NCC chief noted that the consequences of digital exclusion extended beyond internet access, particularly as an increasing number of essential services were becoming digital.
He said persons with disabilities could consequently face disadvantages in accessing education, employment, healthcare, financial services and opportunities to participate fully in society.
The solutions presented at the hackathon, he said, demonstrated the capacity of local innovators to develop technologies suited to Nigerian conditions.
Among them were artificial intelligence-powered speech-to-text tools, voice-enabled public platforms, accessible USSD services and mobile applications designed to make digital services easier to use for persons with different disabilities.
Maida challenged the finalists to approach the next stage of their development with a commercial mindset, urging them to turn their prototypes into products capable of achieving meaningful scale.
“We encourage you to take these ideas from prototypes to products and from product to scale and ultimately from technology to build an impact in the lives of people living with disabilities,” he said.
He also specifically called on venture capitalists, telecom operators and other industry stakeholders to provide the investment required to take the innovations to the market.
“The NCC has created the launchpad but commercial viability and nationwide adoption requires your support to scale,” he said.
Maida urged potential partners to look beyond the contestants’ participation in the hackathon and consider them as emerging founders, prospective business partners and future technology vendors.
The Director of the NCC’s Digital Economy Department, Helen Obi, said the commission wanted the programme to produce outcomes that would extend beyond the conclusion of the competition.
Obi said participants had been informed that winning or participating in the hackathon was not the final objective, as the commission intended to expose the innovators to organisations and individuals that could help them develop their ideas and achieve market readiness.
She said the NCC had already received indications of interest from some stakeholders and would follow up on those opportunities to determine how they could translate into tangible support for the participating innovators.
Obi also called for greater financial backing for young technology founders, particularly those developing solutions capable of addressing challenges in Nigeria’s digital economy.
The call received support from MTN Nigeria, whose Senior Manager, Strategy and Innovation, Chinyelu Chikwendu, commended the NCC for making persons with disabilities the focus of the latest innovation challenge.
Chikwendu said the initiative demonstrated that the commission was contributing to the growth of the technology ecosystem beyond its traditional regulatory responsibilities.
She said MTN was committed to supporting persons with disabilities through its employment practices and technology initiatives.
According to her, MTN was also evolving from a conventional telecommunications company into a digitally driven business and was interested in developing relationships with start-ups whose solutions could grow alongside its own digital transformation.
“We are intentional about seeing start-up organisations grow with us and that’s why we are here today in this programme,” she said.
The competition ended with Sora emerging as the winner and receiving ₦3 million, while Clear Signal took second place with ₦2 million and Ikor emerged third with ₦1 million.
Sora’s winning solution is an inclusive employment and adaptive-skills platform targeted at verified persons with disabilities in Nigeria.
The platform is designed to link qualified persons with disabilities to government institutions and employers committed to inclusive recruitment, while providing learning opportunities adapted to users with different forms of disability.
The founder of Sora, Abdulhaqq Motolani Somoye, said the idea was partly motivated by the Federal Government’s policy requiring government organisations to allocate at least five per cent of their workforce to persons with disabilities.
He said the team identified shortcomings in conventional recruitment platforms, which often did not adequately cater to the accessibility requirements of persons with disabilities.
Somoye disclosed that Sora had engaged the Joint National Associations of Persons with Disabilities and was pursuing collaboration to facilitate verification of persons with disabilities, beginning in Abuja and eventually extending nationwide.
Clear Signal, the second-place team, developed a notification platform for blind, visually impaired and deaf electricity consumers.
The system is intended to ensure that consumers with hearing or visual impairments can receive relevant information concerning developments in their electricity supply.
Ikor, which placed third, developed an assistive artificial intelligence voice-dictation and agentic writing solution.
The technology seeks to reduce barriers associated with expensive hardware, high internet requirements and physical typing, potentially making digital writing and interaction more accessible to users with disabilities.
The NCC said the hackathon formed part of its broader drive to promote indigenous innovation and digital inclusion while encouraging young Nigerians to develop affordable technologies that address real-life challenges.
The commission said the next step was to ensure that promising ideas could progress from demonstrations and prototypes to pilot projects, commercially sustainable products and wider deployment.
It stressed that stronger links between innovators, investors, telecommunications companies, government institutions and other players in the technology ecosystem would be necessary to achieve that objective.
For the NCC, the focus on persons with disabilities also reflects the broader challenge of ensuring that Nigeria’s rapid digital transformation does not leave vulnerable and underserved groups behind.
The commission maintained that technology should eliminate barriers to participation rather than create new ones, urging innovators to continue developing solutions that are affordable, adaptable and capable of delivering measurable benefits to Nigerians.