In 2011, Seun Onigbinde set out to make information about the Nigerian budget and government expenditure accessible to everyone via a platform called BudgIT, the product of a CcHub hackathon. The startup’s emergence was timely, right at the beginning of the fuel subsidy crisis when public frustration with government spending was at its peak. Represented in stark figures that any body on the street could comprehend, one of the most interesting data points from that effort was just how much goes into the presidential breakfast, lunch and dinner.
BudgIT has come a ways since then, and has spent the past three years creating apps, games, interactive websites and infographics that make relevant public data sets available and more importantly, cognitively accessible to the public.
Their first interactive website, the budget cutting app from 2012 which I wrote about is now offline, but Tracka, a social platform that allows concerned individuals collaborate and track capital projects in their community seems to be alive and well. I’m also tracking something interesting that Seun is doing around data journalism on Fitila.ng.
A couple weeks ago, BudgIT and Seun got featured on Ndani TV, and for those who are very acquainted with this young man and his work, I promise you will find the ten minutes of the video very useful.
