Indy Press News Editor, Adebayo Abdulrahman, Olúwábùkúnmi Abraham Awóṣùsì, a 400 Level UI History Student and Oladeji Comfort, a final year Law student of the University of Lagos, have won the Hague Institute for Innovation and Law (HiiL) Hackathon in Lagos.
The team of three were declared winners of the highly competitive Hackathon at the Finals held in Lagos on Saturday.
The Hackathon process began with the submission of an innovative idea that supports the year’s theme, “Justice for the User by the User”.
After a review process, they were selected alongside 11 other teams to attend the first phase of the Hackathon on September 10, 2022.
During the Finals, the team pitched an innovative idea called FraudAlert, an online platform that allows social buyers to report any social vendor that has defrauded them or their relatives by providing adequate evidence which will be fact-checked.
This user-driven idea is designed to create a platform that provides social buyers with appropriate information about online sellers with questionable antecedents.
“What we basically want to do is to reduce fraud in the social market by creating a much needed database for social buyers,” the team lead, Comfort, told journalists after their victory. “Our idea is at the intersection of journalism, law, and design.”
She noted that with the grant, they intend to build their upcoming platform, 419.report, to be able to achieve this through the use of Artificial Intelligence and Fact-checking.
“My team and I are very grateful to The Hague Institute for Innovation and Law for this opportunity. We also express gratitude to our mentors, Oredola Ibrahim and Kolade Malik, for guiding us through this process.”
“We also look forward to attending the Justice Entrepreneurship School being organised by the Justice Accelerator, West Africa to learn more about building a sustainable business that delivers justice, innovation, and impact,” she added.
HiiL Justice is a social enterprise that is devoted to making justice accessible to the public with the use of technology as a standpoint.
With their victory, the team have secured a spot at HiiL’s Justice Accelerator, a 4-month long programme that provides €10,000 in non-equity funding and a full training program delivered by industry specialists: business growth, marketing, team & leadership, impact measurement, and much more.
