Pan-Atlantic Varsity wins 2014 GEN Editors Lab-Vanguard Hackdays

The School of Media and Communication, Pan-
Atlantic University, SMC-PAU, has emerged winner of
the 2014 Editors Lab-Vanguard Hackdays.
The institution, which developed an application
called Verifi, was represented by Temitope Falade,
Keli Oliseh and Kehinde Haastrup, with the score of
10.41.
They will represent Nigeria at the Hackathon during
the GEN Summit in Barcelona, holding from June 11
to 13.
Winners: From left; Temitope Falade, Keli Oliseh
and Kehinde Haastrup of the School of Media and
Communication, Pan-Atlantic University after
emerging winners at the Global Editors Network,
GEN, Editors Lab-Vanguard hackdays, yesterday
in Lagos
The event organised by Global Editors Network, GEN,
in conjunctio with Vanguard Newspapers was
sponsored by Google. Vanguard, represented by
Adekunle Aliyu, Joe Omeike and Akintayo Eribake,
developed an application termed Pollswatch and
came second with a score of 10.15.
Television Continental, TVC; University of Lagos,
UNILAG, and Channels Televisions, with applications
called e15, VoicelessVoice and IVOTE, came third,
fourth and fifth, respectively.
Adefaye expresses delight Mr. Gbenga Adefaye,
General Manager Publication/Editor-in-
Chief, Vanguard Newspapers said: "Let me say how
delighted I am that this has happened.
"It has happened in Nigeria and it has happened in
Vanguard. For me, what is most important is that we
were able to bring all of you together to do what
others are doing globally.
"I'm particularly happy about the performance of the
School of Media and Communication and the
University of Lagos, because they are the trainers.
"I am happy that they have done well, so that when
we send our staff to these schools they will get more
knowledge."
Participants react
The participating teams were Vanguard Newspapers,
UNILAG, SMC-PAU, TVC and Channels. Others were
Daily Trust, Leadership, The Nation, The Nigerian
Tribune, Tell newsmagazine, The News, The Sun
newspapers and
Cool FM.
Expressing joy with her team's success, Temitope
Falade, of SMC-PAU, said: "Honestly, I'm excited and
impressed because at the School of Media and
Communication, we do a lot of hands-on training on
digital media.
"Coming to this kind of competition has actually
shown the level of commitment on the part of the
school in developing new ways for communication.
So it's a good feedback for us and very important
to us."
Explaining their application she said: "Our
application, Verifi, aims to ensure that there is
participation from the citizens, INEC and government
officials before, during and after the election.
"There is also a way to verify the genuineness of the
information that will be shared on the platform."
Synergy
While announcing the results, Mr. Taiwo Kola-
Ogunlade,Communications & Public Affairs Manager
for Google in West Africa, canvassed for the synergy
of all media organisations in Nigeria towards
bringing together all the applications developed on
an independent platform.
He said: "This must not just end here. We will look at
a situation where all the applications developed will
be brought on an independent platform.
"It is obvious that some media houses will not be in
support. But if we can have a minimum of 50 percent
of the media houses in Nigeria supporting this
application and are part of the team working for
its development and success, then we can be rest
assured that every nook and cranny of Nigeria will be
reached."
There was optimism among participants that the
applications developed will bring about a paradigm
shift in the way the media will cover 2015 elections,
and curtail electoral malpractices.

Sent From David Aniemeka