Friday, March 27, 2015

Nigerian Hackers Come Together To Influence Saturday's Election - CNN

pc users in nigeria
Even as Nigeria's voting process makes the long-overdue switch to a tech-based one in one of the most keenly-contested elections this nation has ever witnessed, it would appear that technology will be playing a greater role than most Nigerians would realize. 

Nigeria, being Africa's largest mobile phone market, has an impressive number of its citizens getting involved in the election process through the use of mobile tech. 

"Nigerians are looking for information," says Femi Longe, co-founder of Co-Creation Hub which meshes tech and social issues. "Technology is helping people get involved in the conversation around democracy and elections, which is very important, as the general interest in the air has waned since the voting date was changed."

Femi Longe and his team created TechSQUAD - a 'gang of geeks' working on web projects to help citizens vote. 

CNN says: 
One such project is Govote.ng, a popular website that is focused on the registration process -- that's crucial as in Africa's most populous country, with over 170 million citizens, the logistics can be staggering.

"Most Nigerians have no idea where they are registered," explains Longe. "We want to simplify the entire election process, [and] make it responsive to users."

People log on to the site to see whether they are registered with the Nigeria Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and, if not, they can find out how and where to register. TechSQUAD says approximately 10,000 people visit the site each day.

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