The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) will on Monday, August 17, 2026, begin its FutureMakers Virtual Hackathon, bringing together 60 young innovators from Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones to develop technology-driven solutions to local challenges.
Organized by the NASENI Innovation Hub, the five-day programme will run until August 21, followed by virtual pitch sessions from August 24 to 26.
The 60 participants, selected from thousands of entries, include 10 representatives from each geopolitical zone. They will tackle six zone-specific challenges with support from technical facilitators and mentors.
Successful participants will pitch their solutions before judges and industry leaders, with the sessions streamed live on YouTube and Facebook.
Each zone’s top three innovators will receive ₦1.5 million, ₦1 million and ₦500,000 respectively.
The leading participants will also have an opportunity to compete at the NASENI Invention Fest for a ₦5 million prize, a fully funded international study tour and scholarships to two leading Nigerian universities.
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NASENI Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Khalil Suleiman Halilu, said the hackathon marked the culmination of months of outreach and selection, combining national participation with solutions tailored to local problems.
Hub Manager of the NASENI Innovation Hub, Busola Beckley Perez-Folayan, described FutureMakers as a sustained talent-development pipeline, with successful participants gaining access to SparkLab, mentorship, training and scholarship opportunities.
She said the virtual format would also broaden participation beyond major technology centres such as Lagos and Abuja.
The six challenges address gender barriers to innovation in the North-West; food security and insurgency-related concerns in the North-Central; conflict and security in the North-East; education costs in the South-West; weak academia-industry collaboration in the South-South; and child involvement in trading in place of schooling in the South-East.
NASENI launched FutureMakers in December 2025 to promote innovation and technology-driven problem-solving among children and young people aged five to 16.
The programme is being implemented with partners including MIVA Open University and the African University of Science and Technology, Abuja, as NASENI seeks to strengthen Nigeria’s pipeline of homegrown technological talent.