What if I told you 10 engineering teams at UNILAG are currently building solutions to Nigerian problems… and we might not be able to afford to let them finish? Please, Watch this Video. 👇 @hackSultan @AdoraNwodo @SamuelOtigba @Tunde_OD 5,000 engineering students. 10 departments. 10 prototypes. And somehow, we still struggle to convince people to fund innovation. On August 28, over 2000 students from all 10 engineering departments at the University of Lagos will come together for the first ever PIDEC Grand Finale, where student teams will present prototypes built to solve actual Nigerian problems. I’m Faisal Adams, a final year Electrical & Electronics Engineering student at UNILAG and Chairman of PIDEC, the Prototype Inter Departmental Engineering Challenge. Together with the President of the University of Lagos Engineering Society, Olawale Ayoola, we created PIDEC around a simple idea: Engineering students shouldn’t spend four or five years learning how things work without getting enough opportunities to actually build. And honestly, this is where I need your help. Because these students have spent weeks BUILDING: 🩸 A device for point-of-care blood typing. ⚡ Smart energy management for homes. 🛡️ A wearable child-safety GPS tracker. 🌱 Soil intelligence for agriculture and farm infrastructure. 🛣️ Real-time pothole detection and mapping. ♻️ Intelligent waste sorting. …and four more prototypes tackling problems across healthcare, infrastructure, drainage, petroleum and more. This is what happens when you give engineering students permission to stop just learning engineering and actually DO engineering. But here’s the problem. We are still on our way to hit our ₦10 MILLION target to make this first edition what it deserves to be. And we are running out of time. This isn’t just about putting together another student event. The first edition determines whether PIDEC becomes a one-time experiment or a platform that future generations of Nigerian engineers inherit and build on. And I really, REALLY don’t want the latter to happen because we couldn’t get people to believe in it. So I’m asking Twitter/X to help me do something. If you know a UNILAG alumnus, founder, tech leader, company executive, investor, creator, or anyone who genuinely cares about young Nigerians building things, TAG THEM. Don’t just like this tweet. TAG THEM. If you can support financially, we’ll appreciate it. If you can introduce us to someone who can support, even better. If all you can do is repost this and put it in front of someone who can make a difference, that matters too. I genuinely believe Nigeria doesn’t have a shortage of brilliant young people. We have a shortage of platforms, resources and people willing to bet on them. Let’s change that. Watch the video. Tag someone. Repost this. Let’s make sure these students are not building in silence. 📩 Sponsorship/partnership: DM me or contact us via WhatsApp: Faisal: 09035771048, 09070835260 Fame: 08130367033 PIDEC Grand Finale — August 28. Let’s make the first one count.