The Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) has announced the 2021 edition of the Simeon Agu Prize for the Best Software Entrepreneur of the Year.
Established in 2012 in collaboration with the family of Late Simeon Agu to keep alive his contributions to the software profession and industry, the award is presented yearly at the National Information Technology Merit Awards (NITMA) of the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS).
The award is targeted at software startups to recognise their entrepreneurship as they build a fledgling software business. This year’s award seeks to reward startups for work done from September 2020 to September 2021.
Consideration of the award would be made based on the following criteria: Idea (what is the general idea behind the startup, how good is it and how does it make the startup rank better than other existing solutions?).
Innovation (how innovative is the idea, how much of a disruption has it caused and what new trend has it led to?) and Impact (how much impact does it have on the users, businesses and the industry?); Business model (how good is the business model, how scalable is it?) and Funding (how has the company thrived financially, how much has the company been able to raise and what was the financial turnover?)
ISPON noted that for consideration, all investor funding must be local. The software body said per selection of the winner of the award this year, there will be an open process where people can nominate a startup they feel deserves the award and has fulfilled the set criteria.
ISPON said the panel of judges would shortlist three finalists, who would be voted for by the general public. “A combination of the number of votes garnered as well as points scored from the technical review of the startup by the judges would determine the winner. For more information on the process and to make your nomination, do visit https://thesimeonaguprize.ispon.tech,” it stated.
