Tech
From December Launch to National Stage: The Full Story of FutureMakers by NASENI
Nine months after its Abuja launch, NASENI’s flagship youth innovation programme has taken 60 children from application to the national stage, crowning 18 zonal winners and sending six forward to compete for a ₦5 million grand prize
What began as a single keynote address at NASENI’s headquarters in December has grown into one of Nigeria’s most closely watched youth innovation programmes.
FutureMakers by NASENI has now completed its first full cycle, from application and selection, through a nationwide virtual hackathon, to live streamed pitch sessions watched across the country, culminating in the announcement of 18 zonal winners and six finalists now headed to a national grand prize stage.
How It Started
FutureMakers by NASENI was officially launched on Thursday, 11 December 2025, at the headquarters of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) in Abuja.
Speaking at the launch, NASENI’s Executive Vice Chairman/CEO, Khalil Suleiman Halilu said:
“The technological future of Nigeria belongs to its younger generation”
Describing the programme as another step toward securing the country’s long-term innovation future.
The programme set out to identify, nurture and empower Nigerian innovators aged 5 to 16, selecting 60 children, ten from each of the country’s six geopolitical zones, to take part in a design thinking hackathon and pitch competition.
Each zone would work on a challenge drawn from its own lived reality, rather than a single national brief: gendered barriers to innovation in the North West, food security amid regional insurgency in the North Central, conflict and security in the North East, the high cost of education in the South West, weak academia industry integration in the South South, and the engagement of children in trading instead of schooling in the South East.
The Virtual Hackathon
The programme’s build phase opened on Monday, 17 August 2026, as all 60 shortlisted innovators, selected from thousands of entries, entered a four-day virtual hackathon running through Thursday, 20 August. Supported by technical facilitators and mentors, participants developed working prototypes against their zone’s challenge statement entirely from home, in a fully virtual format designed to widen access to innovators beyond Abuja and Lagos.
FutureMakers Week: The Pitch Sessions
All 60 innovators advanced from the hackathon into FutureMakers Week, the programme’s live pitch stage, which ran from Monday, 24 August to Thursday, 27 August 2026. Streamed live and open to the public on YouTube, X, Instagram and Facebook, the sessions saw every innovator present their prototype before a panel of judges and industry leaders.
“Today, these ideas stop being confined to a whiteboard or a pitch deck,” said Busola Beckley Perez-Folayan, Hub Manager, NASENI Innovation Hub, at the sessions’ opening.
In the South West, a child is presenting an AI-powered learning platform that closes the education access gap for underserved communities.
In the North East, a young girl is presenting a life-saving emergency alert device connecting vulnerable communities directly to the authorities.
In the North Central region, a child is presenting a platform built to ensure vulnerable populations gain reliable access to nutritious food.
The Winners
Eighteen zonal winners have now been named, with the top innovator from each zone advancing to represent their region at the NASENI Innovation Awards Day happening in October, where they will compete for a ₦5 million grand prize, a fully funded international study tour, and scholarships to two leading Nigerian universities.
In the North West, Ruqayya Safwa Faruq claimed the zonal top spot with EcoGlow Lab, ahead of Ahmad Yakub Isah‘s FloodGate Alarm System in second place and Maryam Hamid Amir‘s Idea Sparks in third.
In the South West, Joshua Agboola’s Pragma Learn took first place, with Stephanie Emmanuella Dominic’s LearnS AI finishing second and Joel Idahosa Arasomwan’s Relearn Marketplace placing third.
In the North Central zone, Mary Oluwabusayomi Umahonlen won with the Smart Hydroponic Kit, followed by Jatto Ahmad-Tijani‘s Smart Solar Powered Hermetic Storage Silos in second place and Munachi Kalu’s Mobile Mini Greenhouse in third.
In the South South, Precious Akabude-Odozi’s Velora placed first, ahead of Ayomide Daniel Olorunfemi‘s Skill Based Study Hub in second place and Havilah Uche-Aniche’s StudySesh in third.
In the North East, Emmanuel Paul’s Lafiya Alert took the top spot, with Zanna Gremma’s SOS Wristwatch finishing second and Yahaya Usman Sani‘s Community SOS Mobile App placing third.
And in the South East, Ogbonna Nwota Gold’s Callisto won first place, followed by Eze Bryan Chinny‘s StudyVerse in second place and Angel Echeta Chidalu‘s Community Learning and Earning Hubs in third.
Each zonal winner received ₦1.5 million, with ₦1 million and ₦500,000 awarded to the second and third placed innovators in every zone, respectively.
Every one of the sixty FutureMakers, win or not, retains access to NASENI’s SparkLab prototyping facility, structured technical training and personalised mentorship; a deliberate design choice reflecting the programme’s positioning as a talent pipeline rather than a one-off competition.
What’s Next
The six zonal winners, Ruqayya Safwa Faruq, Joshua Agboola, Mary Oluwabusayomi Umahonlen, Precious Akabude-Odozi, Emmanuel Paul and Ogbonna-Nwota Gold, now advance to the NASENI Invention Fest, where they will pitch alongside innovators from across NASENI’s wider network for the national ₦5 million grand prize, a fully funded international NASENI Innovation Immersion Tour abroad with the EVC/CEO, and university scholarships. The date for the Invention Fest will be announced in due course.
“FutureMakers Week was the culminating moment of the programme cycle, where months of outreach and selection turned into built solutions and backed ventures,” said Khalil Suleiman Halilu, Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of NASENI.
“Sixty innovators, six zones, six challenges, what we witnessed during FutureMakers Week is proof that this programme is deliberately national in reach and local in problem definition,” He added.
FutureMakers by NASENI is delivered in collaboration with academic and ecosystem partners including MIVA Open University and the African University of Science and Technology (AUST), Abuja.
The NASENI Innovation Hub is a member of the AfriLabs network.
About FutureMakers by NASENI
FutureMakers by NASENI is the flagship innovation programme of the NASENI Innovation Hub, identifying and supporting early stage Nigerian innovators building technology solutions to challenges specific to their regions, with access to funding, mentorship, training and NASENI’s engineering and prototyping infrastructure.
About the NASENI Innovation Hub
The NASENI Innovation Hub is the innovation and startup support arm of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure, based in Abuja.
NIH runs programmes including FutureMakers by NASENI and NASENI Xceler8, supporting founders from idea stage through to commercialisation.
About NASENI
The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) is the Federal Government agency mandated to build Nigeria’s science, engineering and technological infrastructure base and to drive the country’s transition from a consumer to a producer economy. NASENI is led by Executive Vice Chairman/CEO Khalil Suleiman Halilu.
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