Brigdwaters Partners Dangote, Mortgage Banks, and Others in $100,000 Housing Initiative
An innovative firm, Bridgewater’s foundation is piloting $100,000 on innovative ideas for a 21st Century housing scheme. Tagged: ‘Sustainable Smart City/Home Challenge’, the firm challenged creative, intelligent and innovative individuals, especially youths, across the world, to participate in the submission of great ideas. The firm is equally seeking partnerships with leading mortgage banks, Dangote groups and BUA as well as other industries in its bid to realize an affordable housing scheme.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Bridgewaters, Mr. Segun Oke, said a winning idea in this contest would: “seek to use disruptive architectural designs, thinking, syndication and materials that: Reduces CO2 emission, energy consumptions, and water usage or flow;
Regulates humidity.
Ensures efficient ventilation, security, and waste management;
Reduces the cost of homeownership; ensures efficient usage of the environment; Uses local material and removes barriers to homeownership, integrate Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and various physical devices connected to the Internet-of-things (IoT) network to optimize the city habitations, services and connect to citizens.”
He, therefore, announced the prizes for winning ideas, saying: “The $35,000 prize purse will be distributed as follows: After two months of submission of ideas to the challenge, the judges will review all submissions received and select 20 leading proposers and award an initial Milestone Prizes of $500 each.
“At the discretion of the judges, these awards may be granted on a conditional basis, subject to the individual or team’s demonstrated commitment to continuing to develop and advance their solutions and to compete for the Grand Prize.
“immediately following the teams’ presentations of ideas and prototypes, judges will select the best five winning ideas, which will be taken to a selected voting audience where the first three best ideas will be selected and awarded prices: $20,000 will be paid to the Grand Prize Winner; $10,000 to the First runner up and
$5,000 to the Second runner up.”.
Speaking further on the inspiration behind the project, One said: “We are taking a vanguard position to flag the ship in sustainable housing development in Nigeria.
“The goal of the challenge is to seek disruptive solutions to the menace of housing and construction in Nigeria. The organizer is throwing this challenge open to stimulate and engage the creativity of our young men and women.
“It also intends to promote deliberate thoughtfulness and solutions to tropical global sustainable construction issues such as climate change, search for sustainable building designs and indigenous materials.
“We are also using the opportunity to stimulate technological innovations in designing a sustainable smart city that would reflect our cultural values, attract tourism, stand the taste of time and remain relevant in the future.
“…in the face of unending rise of owning a house, or buying a common cement, the damage these building materials do to our environment and our future , shouldn’t we rethink what a home , or house should be? or shouldn’t we liberate ourselves from the captivity of Gilgamesh and several other merchants who have become established billionaires and millionaires , profiting from our pains and need for shelter?
“Let’s analyze, two out of the five richest men in Nigeria are dominant producers of building materials and these same two are the richest Nigerian companies, most capitalized stock on the Stock Exchange and they are both cement production companies . Yet, cement alone contribute no less than 6% of the climate issues we have. While they prosper and Nigerians suffers from a massive housing deficit of 17 million. Imagine how much this would be in 20 years with a population growth of 50%.
“This is how much that can be made or would be made and the degree of associated harms and needless cost of owning a house if we keep on doing this, reinforcing the paradigm way of building and designing.
“Perhaps, you are not helpless, you too are a changemaker, you can be another King Gilgamesh, but a better one, disrupting the way we build, rethinking housing finance syndication, reimagining the materials we use for construction, integrating technology to improve, reducing the cost of safety and automate everything such that an ordinary man can be a king, a voice in the design and construction of his homes wherever he may be.
Let’s recreate a new market, a new industry and tomorrow are better kings. Join the sustainable smart city/home challenge today!.
Interested individuals are enjoined to participate.
Source: independent
