TheCable

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Africa Fintech Foundry (AFF) have opened an application portal for the eNaira hackathon.

The apex bank announced this in a tweet on Tuesday, calling on interested tech enthusiasts to submit entries.

Themed ‘eNaira – Africa’s Gateway to a Digital Economy’, the hackathon is aimed at bringing together teams of talented entrepreneurs, developers, designers, solution developers, problem-solvers, out-of-the-box thinkers, and ‘code magicians’ from Africa to develop innovative solutions that will drive improved adoption of the eNaira.

The CBN said the competition is part of efforts to drive financial inclusion, facilitate macroeconomic growth and integrate the Nigerian economy into the world-leading economies through innovation and cutting-edge emerging technologies.

As part of efforts to drive financial inclusion, facilitate macroeconomic growth and integrate the Nigerian economy to the world leading economies through innovation and cutting edge emerging technologies, 1/2 pic.twitter.com/4WYtBvupwb

— Central Bank of Nigeria (@cenbank) June 28, 2022

Participants across the continent are eligible to apply for the hackathon.

According to CBN, the participants will be required to develop use-cases for the eNaira in the following target areas: international remittances, financial inclusion, cross-border payments, and trade.

It added that there is also an option to innovate outside these areas (wildcard innovations).

The hackathon structure will be hybrid (physical and virtual). The physical event will hold in AFF premises for Lagos and a designated location by CBN in Abuja.

CBN said the newly introduced digital currency (eNaira) would be key in ensuring a competitive digital economy in the future.

It added that the currency would support the efficient functioning of the new markets that use these technologies, thereby fostering competition and innovation.

Interested participants can register for the eNaira hackathon via this link.

Application closes on July 21, 2022.