The Deji Alli ARM Young Talent Award (DAAYTA) by Asset and Resource Management Holding Company Limited (ARM) has announced Murtala Sani of WeSabi as the first place winner of the 2019, DAAYTA award.

Murtala Sani emerged the winner from among the 6 finalists with his business proposition WeSabi and received the award worth of ₦12,000,000 to fund and grow his business. Sani’s ₦12,000,000 (twelve million naira) funding will be disbursed over a period of one (1) year to develop his business plan, complete a 5-month entrepreneurial education at the Pan Atlantic University’s Enterprise Development Centre in Lagos, Nigeria; and also to receive support for development of his venture WeSabi through an accelerator programme by a reputable entrepreneurial hub in Lagos, Nigeria.

According to Sani, the urge to make a system better drove him to start WeSabi, an initiative created to help households find reliable and pre-screened artisans in their neighbourhood through a website, mobile app and a USSD platform. It’s goal being to build Africa’s marketplace for the blue-collar sector.

In the fifth position was Oluwayomi Oyatoye of MechoMedics whose initiative aims to address the problem of poor adoption of the new Secondary School curriculum in Nigerian schools specifically in the area of implementing trade courses and entrepreneurship development.

Daniel Odediran of PrestPro came in fourth with his idea which aims to produce an energy-saving cooling system using clay for the preservation of freshly plucked tomatoes in order to extend their shelf life.

Yusuf Shittu of “Jojolo” Neo Childcare bagged the third position after explaining that Neo Childcare as a mobile child health service provider seeks to provide top quality and affordable healthcare for children especially in low-income communities in Nigeria.

Dare Odumade of Chekkit made the second position with his innovation which is an anti-counterfeiting, asset-tracking and consumer feedback analytics platform and tool aimed at addressing the problem of counterfeiting, pilferage and inefficient supply of products.

The DAAYTA programme which was inaugurated by ARM in honour of its founding CEO Mr Deji Alli in 2015 is part of the company’s CSR efforts to educate and empower the younger generation to make a meaningful socio-economic impact in their immediate environment and the nation at large.

DAAYTA 2019 opened for applications in November 2018 receiving over 500 applications from talented and optimistic young entrepreneurs with 20 standing out after the initial selection before the final selection of 6 candidates was made.

Speaking on the outcome of the event, Ms Uche Azubuike, Managing Director of ARM Academy said “We are happy that this huge part of our firm’s corporate social responsibility has yet again yielded fruits by empowering a good start-up business which will have a positive impact in the environment. There is a lot going on in the ecosystem right now, a lot of support from experienced people and from technology as well. So I would advise the winners to take advantage of that and make an impact”.

“On behalf of ARM, I extend my heartfelt congratulations and best wishes to Murtala Sani, all finalists and applicants; and my appreciation to our esteemed judges and everyone in attendance for their time at DAAYTA 2019.”

Lauding the DAAYTA 2019 Awards ceremony, the Tech Strategy Advisor and Founder of TechnoVision Mr. Tomi Davies stated, “I am glad the DAAYTA Awards event was different from the traditional pitch events as we went through a thorough process to get to this final stage. The judges were amazing as their decisions were prompt and they were aligned and as one of them said, “Even our unconscious bias was also revealed in a subtle way”.

“I especially like the fact that the finalists had worked with one other before the event and bonded enough to help each other. At the end of the day, each of the 5 finalists that participated was a winner and went home with a prize and we all agreed that Murtala Sani of Wesabi deserved the first prize.” He added.

DAAYTA 2019 Awards was supported by TechnoVision Communications Limited, a technology services company with speciality in advising clients on technology-led transformation and early-stage entrepreneurship in Africa.

A team of four distinguished judges played the pivotal role of choosing the DAAYTA 2019 award winner amongst whom are: Victor Asemota, the Africa Partner for Alta Global Ventures, a US-based venture capital company; Mitchell Elegbe, founder of Interswitch, Sadiq Mohammed, the Deputy Group CEO of ARM Group and Dr. Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien, an Angel investor and Group Chief Sustainability and Governance Officer of Dangote Group.

Story by: Theresa Igata