The Federal Government has rewarded 13 civil servants with the sum of N7.8 million for emerging tops in the 4th edition of the Federal Civil Service Innovation Competition.
The winners of this year’s annual competition were presented with checks of various sums as a reward for their ingenuity by the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Dr Folasade Yemi-Esan, at a brief ceremony on Monday in Abuja.
The star prize winner smiled home with N3,000,000, the first runner-up got N1,750,000, and the second runner-up received N1,000,000.
10 other innovators were presented with cash rewards of N200,000 each as consolation prizes.
Yem-Esan explained that the innovation competition was a platform for civil servants to identify problems in the service and propose their ingenious solutions.
According to her, this year’s competition is the 4th edition since its inception in 2020, and participants were made to compete within the scope of the following subjects: reward and performance management, mentorship and succession planning, as well as talent management and knowledge transfer through e-learning.
She disclosed that a total of 203 submissions were received and collated, out of which 99 civil servants participated in the first round of pitching, while 28 qualified and participated in the second round.
At the final round held on March 22, 2024, a total of 14 contestants competed, from which three (3) top-winning ideas emerged, along with ten (10) other winners.
The Head of Civil Service of the Federation, who was excited by the outcome of the challenge, said the resolve of the government to sustain innovation in the service and discourage the suppression of ideas is yielding tangible results.
Yemi-Esan said that since the first edition in 2020, the Civil Service has been able to effectively deploy several solutions that were developed in-house.
She listed some of these innovations, including the Compro CBT Application for the Conduct of Confirmation Exams in the Civil Service; the Anonymous Reporting System (ARS), which is a whistleblowing application; and the Office Space Management Solution, which has helped the office effectively reallocate and manage office spaces in the various phases of the Federal Secretariat Complex, Abuja, among others.
She said the most important outcome of the competition was the remarkable display of courage and a can-do attitude by all the innovators who pitched one idea or another during the competition.
She noted that the winners have demonstrated a commendable level of confidence and a positive approach to life, saying a positive attitude towards problems helps you identify what improvements can be made.
On her part, the Permanent Secretary, Special Duties Office, Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Dr Magdalene Ajani, said that in order to build a world-class, effective, and responsive civil service, as envisioned in the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan (FCSSIP 2020) and the successor plan (FCSSIP 2025), the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation has remained committed to institutionalising innovation in the Federal Civil Service.
She said one of the strategies deployed towards achieving this goal is the implementation of the Federal Civil Service Innovation Competition, with the maiden edition organised in the year 2020.
Ajani added that the competition provided a veritable platform to showcase and celebrate the ingenuity, creativity, and problem-solving prowess of civil servants.
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