GTCO Unveils Mentorship for Young Talents After Squad Hackathon 3.0

BY OLAMIDE OJUOKAIYE, Lagos

Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc (GTCO) and its fintech subsidiary HabariPay have announced a mentorship and talent-pipeline programme for students and early-career technologists, following the conclusion of Squad Hackathon 3.0 at the GTCentre.

The announcement accompanied the hackathon’s grand finale, which organisers said drew more than 1,600 applications from students and young innovators across Nigerian universities.

After technical reviews of team structure and GitHub portfolios, organisers shortlisted over 600 applicants and more than 500 participants progressed to the final round, where teams presented solutions focused on artificial intelligence, automation, productivity systems and digital inclusion.

According to the firm, Team Block X from Obafemi Awolowo University won the competition with Guild, an AI-powered platform designed to connect informal workers to employers and integrate them into financial services.

GTCO group chief executive, Segun Agbaje described the hackathon as a platform for developing future technology leaders through real-world problem solving.

“You are the best of the best. Everybody who made it into this room today is already a winner,”

Agbaje said. “The world is not ruled by extroverts; it is ruled by thinkers.”

He emphasised resilience, collaboration and ethical execution as critical success factors in innovation and enterprise building.

HabariPay managing director Eduofon Japhet, described the mentorship programme as a response to the gap between classroom learning and practical problem-solving.

She said selected participants will receive structured training, tuition assistance and potential employment opportunities, and that HabariPay intends the programme to be long-term rather than a one-off offering.

“We realised there is still a gap between classroom theory and practical problem-solving,” Japhet said. “This platform is designed to help students build real-world solutions using emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and smart systems.”

She added that HabariPay is developing a long-term mentorship and talent pipeline programme to support selected participants through training, tuition assistance and potential employment opportunities.

The Team Block X three-member team — Treasure Uvietobore (platform and systems engineer), Naheem Olaide (frontend and machine learning developer) and Enoch Idowu (AI and machine learning engineer) — demonstrated how Guild’s Nigerian English voice agent, Tola, matches workers to jobs, facilitates payment through the Squad platform and helps build a verifiable transaction record.

Organisers said consistent transactions on the platform could support access to banking services and credit within about 90 days.

Other notable projects included Tracker, developed by University of Lagos student Sherif Sani. Tracker is an AI-based workforce productivity monitoring tool that analyses workflow patterns, browser activity and task timelines while incorporating privacy-focused monitoring controls.

The hackathon format included coding marathons, live product demonstrations, technical assessments and networking sessions.

Judges evaluated teams on creativity, scalability, user impact and execution capability.

Organisers said details on how to apply for the mentorship programme, selection criteria and timelines will be published on GTCO and HabariPay’s official channels.

The initiative is intended to formalise a talent pipeline, offering trainees technical mentorship and potential pathways into internships or employment within GTCO’s ecosystem.