Reuben Muoka
4 October 2001
THE Promising Web Designer Competition organized by the Lagos Executive Cyberschuul, produced a winner in a 24 year-old Electronics and Electrical graduate of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Mr. 'Gbegan Sesan who clinched the top position that will also earn him a N100,000 price money and other goodies.
Chief Executive of Executive Cyberschuul, Engr Titi Omo Ettu who announced the result of the competition at a ceremony at the school in Lagos, yesterday, said a total of 59 persons indicated interest in the competition and by September 15, 2001 when entries closed, 24 design-entry submissions were received.
He said the aim of the competition is to identify capable young Nigerians who, in spite of the inadequate infrastructure in our environment, possess the potential to develop skills which can make them rank among the best in the world. We on our part will associate with the identified talent s and encourage them to offer assistance to other youths in developing more of such skills, thereby propagating knowledge in the subject, arrest idleness which often attend to the instability in our education system, and make our youths more useful to us and to themselves.
"To this end, the winner, with support from The Executive Cyberschuul will be encouraged to offer coaching classes for Nigerian youths across the country who are willing to develop themselves in website development, and, for that matter, Internet Applications.
"Such persons will be required to constitute themselves into small groups, invite the winner for an agreed period of time, pick up the bill for his transportation, arrange suitable local accommodation and transportation fore him while we pick his professional fees.
" He, of course, has been admitted to part-time retainer ship of The Executive Cyberschuul where his services will complement those of other senior consultants" he said.
Engr Omo Ettu said all the entitlements expressed in the conditions for the competition are being met.
"That is to say, the winner will be paid for his design and maintenance of the site for the next two years and he will be sponsored to all Internet related conferences and seminars which hold in Nigeria in the year 2002", he said .
He said this is in addition to his above mentioned special project of the next two years and that the winning design has already been launched on site, www.cyberschuul.com while a formal investiture ceremony will be announced in due course.
In arriving at the winner, he said a panel of judges, which was set up used some score points to assess entries which include Creativity & Research (20 points) Information Presentation (20 points) Use of Technology (15 points) Links Management (15 points) Aesthetics (10 points) Formatting (10 points) Adherence to Competition Rules (5 points ) Distance from Lagos bonus(3 points) Disability bonus (2 points) to make the total score of 100 points. He said at the end of final scoring, 8 contestants scored 50% and above while 16 contestants scored below 50%.
According to the score sheet, 14 contestants entered form Lagos, two from Ibadan, two from Benin, one each from Abuja, Ilorin, Minna, Aabakaliki, Owerri, Zaria, and Zaria while no contestant claimed disability.
He said it was out of these that "Gbenga Sesan from Lagos came tops with 76 per cent while the 1st Runner Up Mr. Oluwafemi Afolabi Ashiru also form Lagos, scored 64 per cent. The 2nd Runner-Up Mr. Olajide Kehinde Lawal from Ilorin scored 62 per cent.
He thanked the media and all those who took interest in the competition.
"We are especially grateful to all contestants in the competition. For us, their names will remain in the gold disc section of our database and they will be contacted regularly just as we shall invite them to any of our programmes, which we consider useful to them" he said.
He said the rules of the competition allow for the refund of direct expenses incurred by participants who at the end of evaluation score above 50%. Indeed, 7 other participants apart from the winner scored 50% an above. Only 3 of them submitted any claims the average of which is N3,926.0.
"We have decided to offer N5,000.00 each to all the seven of them" he said.
"Ladies and gentlemen and fellow Nigerians, a country which produces the likes of Wole Soyinka, Ayodele Awojobi (of blessed memory), Phillip Emeagwali, Kanu Nwankwo, Helon Habila, Amodu Shuaibu, to mention a few, has already established the fact that it is a producer of the bests in the world. Thus, we are not making any extraordinary news" he said.
."It is however almost a tragedy when we observe the manner in which some managers of our affairs go to hire foreign expertise, sometimes to the total exclusion of local talents, even in analysing our problems how much more in prescribing solutions for them.
"In the final analysis these so called experts of theirs have not taken us out of the woods.
"Our hope is that we shall begin to see a change of attitude.
"And we invite the attention of our Legislature in this regard.
We understand that the Websites of some notable establishments, even among them agencies and parastatals of Government in this country were designed by foreigners and that should surprise us if the story is true.
"We challenge any of such sites to beat this one which has been done by our own Mr. 'Ggbenga Sesan, 24, B. Sc. (Electronics and Electrical Engineering, OAU), NYSC (Lagos), Brainbench Certified HTML, Expert, and Member HTML Writers Guild.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2001 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
