Eko Innovation Centre unveils Nigeria’s First Marketing and Media Hackathon

By Dayo Badmus,

The maiden edition of the Media and Marketing Hackathon tagged MarkHack 1.0 has been launched in Lagos.

The launch by Eko Innovation Centre in collaboration with GDM Group is in line with the center’s goal of creating lasting solutions to real-life marketing challenges and ultimately, changing the marketing and media landscape with tech solutions that would disrupt and tackle some of the challenges faced in the industry

Speaking at the launch, the organizers revealed that over 500 individuals registered to participate in the hackathon from 72 locations.

It also announced that the best 10 teams with the most viable concepts will go head-to-head at the finale on 18th May for a chance at the $20,000 prize pool and an acceleration program with up to $50K equity investment to get their products ready for the market among other benefits.

“Marketing is the most effective engine of economic development as it can rapidly develop entrepreneurs and managers but the industry is yet to see a technological breakthrough within the country considering the growth of Martech globally, an industry estimated at $344.8bn in 2021 according to Martech Alliance (2021),” said Victor Afolabi, Founder, Eko Innovation Centre & Curator, Art of Technology Lagos.

In his words: “The Nigerian marketing industry has started to see preliminary innovation but acceleration is slow to disrupt the future in line with changing consumer behaviour. “We are yet to experience notoriety for a homegrown technological breakthrough at a remarkable scale in the Marketing Industry.”

He stated further that the MarkHack was conceptualized to make a difference.

According to him, it is “A gathering of innovators, entrepreneurs, Policymakers, and Marketing Professionals, to create solutions to real-life Marketing challenges in an intense period of time. Using creativity, technology, and mentoring, resulting in prototypes, fresh new concepts, and innovative usages of tech for Marketing and Media.”

The organizers disclosed that participants would be split into teams of 5 and would be required to work together for 3 weeks, brainstorming and ideating new concepts based on their focus areas.

They would also be sub-grouped into 8 focus areas which include consumer experience, media consumption, consumer recruitment & interaction, trade & retail engagement, analytics and metrics, events marketing, media monetization, and content creation.

Each team would pitch its ideas to a respected Jury of experts in the subject matter, and the best 10 teams would be picked by the Jurors.

Overall, 21 Mentors, 30 Selection Jurors, 8 Speakers, and 6 Final Jurors are partaking in the event and are the industry’s best with decades of experience in marketing, media, technology, business management and others.

Eko Innovation Centre is one of the leading tech hubs in Nigeria, curating events like Art of Technology Lagos, and The Lagos Smart Meter Hackathon amongst others while GDM Group is Nigeria’s leading marketing and innovation company.