By Favour Aniemeke and Temitope Ishola
Victory Ufedo Samuel, a 300-level student of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, has emerged as overall winner of the Hackathon competition of Pharmaceutical Association of Nigeria Students (PANS), University of Jos chapter.
The competition which was sponsored by Pharmacist Rinji as part of events marking the 29th students’ week of the association was tagged “proactive measures to the looming waves of medication and pharmaceutical products inflation”.
The keynote speaker, Dr Dangiwa Dauda highlighted that the need to develop a vibrant pharmaceutical sector which includes essential medicines (EMs) and quality health care delivery necessitated building of capacity of the local pharmaceutical manufacturing sector towards self-sufficiency to national drug security. He stressed that drugs that follow the normal distribution chain are expensive while short circuited are cheaper and cost effective.
Victory who clinched the first position was awarded with fifty thousand naira, while the first runner up and the second runner up were given thirty and fifteen thousand Naira respectively.
Reacting after her emergence as the overall winner of the competition, Victory revealed that her disappointing 100-level outing at the United Nation’s Hackathon, during which her teammates perform exceedingly above her, was the motivating factor that pushed her to win.
She further disclosed that in spite of lack of access to materials online to research her brain drilling topic, she was able to brainstorm to derive “home remedies” and their standardization.
The 5 participants of the Hackathon were selected having been streamlined to represent different groups in the faculty, after successfully sailing through the critically analyzed criteria such as the creativity, feasibility and potential impact of the proposal.
