Who Will Win ‘Best Use of Technology’ At The Future Awards 2011?

As we countdown to The Future Awards 2011 ceremony on January 30th, we take a look at the strongest contenders for the ‘Best Use of Technology’ award category.

The highly controversial final list of the Future Awards 2011 which was officially released today features what the judges consider to be the best of the brightest young Nigerians today.

Here is TFA’s list of Nigeria’s Top 3 Technology Innovators of 2010:

Tolulope Iroye (Inventor of the Magic Box)

Tolulope Iroye, 27, is involved in design and construction of electronics gadgets, hardware designs, alternative energy solutions, security systems and control system.

He also writes programs for microcontrollers which can be used for any purpose (mini computer), Design and construction of solar systems, inverters, automatic change over, voltage stabilizers, intelligent traffic controller, intelligent car park system, intelligent phase selector/ change over, power surge protector.

In the past year, he has developed the Magic Box which allows one to control electricity or mobilize/immobilize cars from anywhere in the world with a mobile phone.

His intelligent automatic changeover controls generators and programs electrical load based on the generator capacity.

Saheed Adepoju (Innovator of the Encipher tablet, Inye)

Saheed Adepoju, 27, was nominated for the introduction of Nigeria’s first tablet PC, Encipher Inye.

The Encipher Inye is a tablet which runs on the Google Android operating system and provides a competition to the Apple iPad.

The Inye also features local content like the HIV awareness campaign provided in the Yourba language.

Google Inc has indicated interest to partner in line with the Google tradition of preserving and expressing local content in the African region.

Muhammed Mubarak Abdullahi (Aeronautic Engineer)

Muhammad Abdullahi, 24, is a physics undergraduate in northern Nigeria who built a home-made helicopter.

Abdullahi takes old cars and motorbikes to pieces in the back yard at home and builds his own helicopters from the parts. The chopper, which has flown briefly on six occasions, is made from scrap aluminium that Abdullahi bought with the money he makes from computer and mobile phone repairs. 

It is powered by a second-hand 133 horsepower Honda Civic car engine and kitted out with seats from an old Toyota saloon car. Its other parts come from the carcass of a Boeing 747 which crashed near Kano some years ago. For a four-seater it is a big aircraft, measuring twelve metres (39 feet) long, seven metres high by five wide.

My Thoughts

Now that we know who they are and what they’ve done, allow me to say that they all deserve to win the award.

But from a consumer perspective, I think Tolulope Iroye’s Magic Box and Saheed Adepoju’s Encipher Tablet will likely be bringing a better product offering to the consumer market.

Besides, their tech products seem to have a strong value proposition and if funded, they could compete globally with similar brands and help drive innovation in Nigeria.

What are your thoughts?

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