A total sum of N77.5 million in prize money was won at the end of a keenly contested hackathon session at the Fourth Edition of the Zenith Tech Fair, themed: ‘Future Forward 4.0: Embedded Finance, Cybersecurity & Growth Imperatives – The Impact of AI’, which held yesterday in Lagos.

The prize money was shared among 10 finalists who emerged from the over 1,700 contestants that took part in the hackathon, with JumpnPass, a self-checkout technology solution reshaping the retail landscape in Africa emerging as the overall winner and taking home the grand prize of N25 million.

This is in addition to a six week mentorship and incubation program designed to help them grow and scale effectively, which will run from December 2024 to February 2025.

The first runner-up, CreditChek, a credit and verification service provider which leverages AI and open banking to streamline income and credit history verification for financial institutions, won N20 million and a mentorship programme, while the second runner-up, Salad Africa, a start-up which offers seamless integration of credit products for digital platforms and software companies won N15 million as well as a mentorship programme.

Other finalists who took home N2.5million each include Regxta, CashAfrica, Middleman, Messenger, Pocketfood, Famasi Africa, Kitovu.