Wema Bank Plc has opened application entries for the fourth edition of its tech talent discovery and nurturing project among university students tagged Hackaholics 4.0.
Announcing the commencement of entries for Hackaholics 4.0 at a press conference on Tuesday in Lagos, the bank’s Executive Director, Digital Services, Mr Tunde Mabawonku, said as bank was innovating, it was also helping individuals and organisations to innovate to make the country better.
He said, “Just as we redefined experiential banking with ALAT, Hackaholics is at the heart of our innovative project for start ups . We are poised to host the largest campus hackahon this year.
“As we plan the next eight decades of Wema Bank, we need to innovate and help encourage others on how to innovate. We try to get the best and brightest and give the country ideas on how to transform out organisations to become world class.”
This year’s Hackaholics, he noted, was focusing on building finance beyond technology would be looking for entries with innovative solutions on how to solve gender violence, promote entertainment, among others.
Mabawonku said the bank, through the project, would be engaging 10,000 tech entrepreneurs, producing 5,000 solutions, creating six pitch centres and having huge impact during the course of the campaign
Also speaking, the bank’s Chief Digital Officer, Mr Olusegun Adeniyi, said Wema bank had successfully disrupted the digital banking ecosystem by producing the first digital bank and creating a unique experiential banking with ALAT.
He said, “We have been driving with the mindset of innovation. We are looking to be an ecosystem of platforms, a hub for fintech and other players. We are moving to the next phase of digital unbundling.”
The Chief Transformation Officer of the bank, Mr Babatunde Mumini, going down memory lane, said the Hackaholics programme began in 2019 and its scope and teach had since been expanded.