TheCable

BudgIT, Nigerian civic social enterprise, says it hopes to solve grassroot problems with the launch of Civic Hive.

Speaking at the launch, Seun Onigbinde, BudgIT chief executive officer, said Civic Hive was birthed as a result of the need to help citizens get closer to the government.

“We found that citizens need to be closer to the government, they need to ask more questions and they need to demand more answers. Within BudgIT, we can’t do it alone.

“We feel that we need to contextualize our work and support other organizations. We also want to raise new leaders in civic tech activism to change Nigeria.

“Today, we have promoted four fellows who are going to change the dynamics about amplifying voices at the grassroots, locating missing persons and having a judiciary that this open and transparent.

“This is our own way of giving back and not like in a charity but helping ourselves. We feel like our work needs a stronger community.

“Most of the products that we will build in this place are going to be for those who are underground.

“We’re going to have what we call rural labs which is going to look for how to solve key grassroots problems. Socio economic problems, psychological problems and access to governance so we are going to have rural labs and this is our own way of engaging the citizens.”

Part of the activities at the launch, which held on Saturday in Yaba, was the presentation of four projects by four fellows of Civic Hive.

The four projects that were presented are:

• Amplify (a project to identify rural communities and generate support for the community) by Dotun Olutoge;
• Open Justice (a project to ensure transparency in the Nigerian judicial system) by Nelson Olanipekun;
• Locate (a project to ensure quick response to missing persons report) by Ogboju Robert;
• Open Medic (a search engine to help locate basic medical essentials) by Dennis.