Earlier in March this year, I got selected for the UNLEASH Hacks.

UNLEASH Hacks are a localized and collaborative digital event where young talents collectively work with local stakeholders and community members to collectively solve regional challenges.

The theme of the Hack in Nigeria was “the Role of Tech in Education” with a focus on SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 8(Decent Work and Economic Growth).

The hackathon was spread across two days. The first day of the hack was the 23rd of April 2022, while the second day of the hack was the 30th of April 2022.

The hackathon was fast-paced, but the mentors and the organizers were very clear on how we would go about the hackathon from the very get-go.

On the first day, we were introduced to the UNLEASH Hacks and then introduced to the design thinking methodology we were to use during the hackathon.

We then got paired into teams; my teammates were Sunday La’abes and Ganiyat Temitope, while the mentor assigned to our team was Tayo Owosina.

We started with the first stage of the design thinking process, and we gradually progressed towards the second stage, which was to bring out solutions based on the first stage. After Sudebi and Aderinsola came to review our progress, we got a cold dose of reality poured on us. We found out that we had been doing the wrong thing, which somehow became the most significant learning for me during the hack.

According to the design thinking session we had during the initial phase of the hackathon, we were supposed to conduct user research and, from there, analyze the results of the research. Afterward, whittle down our findings till we could get an actionable problem that we could work on. We ideate around possible solutions for that chosen problem. Instead of doing this, my team and I chose a problem we thought was what the users needed and started fitting our solutions to fit that problem in the first stage, which was not supposed to be done until the second stage. More importantly, the process was not backed by proper user research on our path.

So what happened?

We were asked to go back and start all over again towards the end of the first day of the hack. Ideally, we are supposed to have been going towards the end of the second stage of the hack. Expectedly, we were disappointed and angry about the verdict, at least I certainly was, but we knew we were in the wrong and had to correct our mistakes. Based on the pointers and guides from our mentor and from Sudebi and Aderinsola, we were able to conduct user research during the week and got accurate data for it.

When the second day of the hack came around, we were buzzing to scale through the first stage and “pass through the gate,” as we say in the hack. When the judges came around, we were shocked again that we still didn’t do the right thing, lol.

At this point, we were just frustrated, to be honest, and I’m pretty sure I was not the only one thinking of quitting the hack on my team at that point. However, a final piece of suggestion seemed to have been the one thing that got us out of deep water.

Guess what it was?

It was phone interviews.

Since the user research, we conducted during the week didn’t capture the ideal audience and the questions were skewed towards validating the idea of a solution we already had, the research was flawed and, as such, could not be used.

So we had to conduct phone interviews on the second day of the hack as part of the first stage. Meanwhile, the hack timeline puts teams realistically to be working on their prototype at this point. We knew we couldn’t jump the process. So we gave ourselves a twenty-minute break, and then everyone on the team went to conduct a phone interview with the target audience we had identified already from a part of the first research. After 20mins of interviewing different people from the right audience, we discovered four basic problems that were generally reoccurring among the interviewees.

From these four problems, we settled on one. We cleared the gate and got to the stage where we had to come up with a few potential solutions to the idea we came up with. We finally decided on one, and that was how “Click ‘a’ Job” was born. The name came from the most vocal of the team naturally, Ganiyat.

We couldn’t complete the prototyping stage, but we had a decent layout of the solution we wanted to work on.

Last on the stages was pitching.

We, ideally, at this stage, were not ready for the pitch, but as the saying goes, when there is a will, there’s a way.

We agreed that Ganiyat would be the one to pitch the “Click ‘a’ Job” idea for us to the judges. However, because we knew there was a possibility of a last minute technical issue and some other challenges that might also come up, we had a backup plan to have me pitch in that eventuality.

We didn’t know initially then, but it was a good thing we had a backup plan because Ganiyat’s network and device decided that they both needed a break at that point when it was our team’s time to pitch. So I stepped up and gave the pitch. I fielded a few fascinating questions from the judges while my teammates chipped in their answers as well in areas they knew best.

After the pitch, we had a 20-25mins recess to allow the judges to collate the results and announce the winners.

At the end of the two-day hackathon, team three emerged as the winners of the hackathon. While my team (team 5) emerged in second place with our “Click ‘a’ Job” solution to connect Artisans to customers in Abuja.

Even though we didn’t win, we learned a lot about the design thinking process, and coming second place came with a few perks that will enable my team and me to continue working on our solution.

I will like to use this medium to give a massive shoutout to the organizing team of the UNLEASH Nigeria Hack – Aderinsola Adio-Adepoju, Elizabeth Oghenero, Sudebi Thakurata, Zanna Samaila, and everyone a part of the team.

I will also like to give a huge shout-out to my team Ganiyat and Stephen, and, last but not least, our amazing mentor Tayo Owosina who was instrumental in keeping the team together through a particularly trying time for us when emotions were high.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience and I'm really grateful to have been a part of another UNLEASH program.