Nasir Abdulkadir Yammama, winner of the British Council’s innovation prize, has said he will be representing England and not Nigeria at the Microsoft-sponsored global technology competition.
Yammama told the BBC he may come back to Nigeria in the future to help the country solve its numerous challenges.
The postgraduate student of Middlesex University, emerged winner of the British Council/Virgin Atlantic Airlines’ Enterprise Challenge competition.
He developed a mobile application for Nigerian farmers to obtain information about the richness of their farmlands and marketability of their grown produce. In addition to other prizes, he would also be mentored by the founder of Virgin Atlantic, Richard Branson.
“This is not the only competition I am participating in. I am still participating at the Microsoft’s global technology competition. I am supposed to have represented Nigeria at it, but things have changed. I will represent England,” Yammama said.
“Many of us are going from England. That is why they have to screen us. We are now at the semifinal stage. But this (Microsoft technology) competition is like the World Cup in the area of technology innovation.”
The British Council said: “What struck us about Nasir was that unlike a lot of young people his age, he is actively thinking about solutions to Nigeria’s current problems and he has taken a different perspective to what he believes this solutions might be.”
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