Finalists of the Mobile Garage Students’ Exhibition

Name: Mukeli Matei.

Application Name: Fishmate

Fishmate – A mobile application that connect fishermen, fish-farmers, fish consumers’ industry players and YOU in one market place.

Name: Jacob Omollo.

Application Name: M-Life Saver,

M-Life Saver is an android application that helps in reporting of emergency cases. It is triggered by rotating the phone a time when you cannot make a call neither can you write a text message, tensed environment! It gets your current location and sends in two ways: via SMS and to a Web Server. The SMS goes to anybody you trust of help (Kenya Police or Kenya Red Cross) upon which gets your location and trace you. Web server helps people to share via Google maps through Facebook, Twitter or SMS.

Name: Moffat Ngacha.

Application Name: ClubSoci,

ClubSoci is a Java ME (J2ME) mobile application that enables students and university staff to access different types of information in their universities. The users are able to see what’s happening in their university/college, share their thoughts and opinions as well and socialize with other users by posting to Facebook, Twitter and friends via SMS.

Name: Thomas Kioko.

Application Name: Nduru,

Nduru is a one-stop mobile application intended to manage almost all incidences related to road safety. The application brings between various services by creating inter-connectivity among different parties and gives power to common “mwananchi” (Citizen) to take charge of their own safety through the mobile phone.

Name: Kiplangat Victor Chelule.

Application Name: mScheduler,

mScheduler is a mobile application meant for students.  The application integrates a timetable based on the course a student is taking and their year of study featuring classes, assignments, exams date, continuous assessment dates. It also offers a news and announcements section, events section, hotlines, and services such as fee balance inquiry, exams results check and even reporting lost and found items.

A unique thing about mScheduler is that it is not tailored for only one institution, with a powerful administration back-end built with code-igniter, everything is customizable.

Name: George Mbuthia.

Application Name: FairPrice,

FairPrice is an API that mobile applications can consume and use to collect commodity prices, and provide a platform for bidding on the commodities and allow farmers to get the best prices for their commodities. For consumers it will allow them to get the best prices for food, from local traders around them.

Name: Denis Kariuki.

Application Name: E-Notice,

E-Notice is a J2ME application that uses bluetooth to post notices to all the users connected to the server. The app is expected to be applicable in any institution or organization that has everyday activities that need its’ users to be notified of any event, meeting or any other urgent information.

Name: David Mabiria

Application Name: UASAY,

UASAY is a real time web and mobile based SMS application that is used to interact with the audience in a workshop/conference (i.e. getting their feedback and replying to them), and also used in retail shops, supermarkets, banking halls & media houses to get their customers/clients/viewers feedback either as views/comments/their say/complaints & being able to reply to the same.

Name: Newton Kitonga.

Application Name: KUSSD,

KUSSD is an Android application that lists popular mobile services in Kenya, including USSD codes, SMS short-codes and M-Pesa Paybill numbers. These services are very many, hence hard to remember. There are currently over 552 M-Pesa Paybill numbers and growing in Kenya, and it is very hard to remember a 6 digit number everyday as you try to pay your bills. Information on these numbers is very fragmented on the Internet thus very cumbersome to search for them online. This is where KUSSD will help you with a convenient listing of all this services and more.

Name: Kennedy Nyaga.

Application Name: Mingle,

At dot idea we develop Mingle an SMS based real time chat application for youth especially in college to meet and make new friends.

Name: Kipkemoi Kirui Leonard.

Application Name: Mobi-Vet,

Mobi-Vet is a Mobile based Application targeting Daily farmers. Farmers should be able to find veterinary officer and AI provider based on their locations, check their new dairy feeds in the market and learn about various types of dairy breeds.

Name: Wendo Oriri.

Application Name: Swa for Chinese,

This is a Mobile based application that translates words and phrases from the English language to Swahili to Chinese and vice versa.

The words are described and a synonym where applicable .The application also plays audio files of how each word is pronounced.

Name: Vivian Chename.

Application Name: uniSoko,

This application is useful for buying and selling second hand goods between students of the various universities and campuses. Buyers are able to view categories of different products ranging from clothing, electronics, stationery and more. They are also able to contact the sellers immediately.

For the sellers it eliminates the need to place posters all over the place and get buyers quickly. The sellers have to create an account for them to be able to advertise on the app by paying a small fee for each product which will be a source of revenue for us.

Name: Kichi shiojili and Jacob Teko.

Application Name: MatNavi,

MatNavi is an application that is a mobile guide on Matatu transportation in Nairobi.

Mobile Garage Students Exhibition

Akirachix invites you to the Mobile Garage Students Exhibition that will be held in the iHub on May 19^th from 9:00 a.m – 3:00 p.m. This is an opportunity to come and see what the next generation of mobile entrepreneurs are working on. This event is a follow up to the Mobile Garage events that Akirachix has been holding in various universities in Kenya. This event specifically targets students to give them an opportunity to showcase their mobile projects and compete at the same level. The students exhibition aims to create a competition of ideas among students and give them an opportunity to test their pitching skills and sell their applications to an audience of different specialists.

If you are a student, you can submit your application here.

To attend the event register here

AkiraChix Training Program 2012 has begun!

Technology is one of the key factors driving Africa’s projected economic rise. At the moment, there is a large gender gap in both the academic and professional arenas of technology. As such, there is enormous opportunity to develop women as technology professionals. This is where the AkiraChix Training program comes in. In line with our mission of training, AkiraChix embarked on training young ladies from socio-economically challenged areas in August 2010.

This time last year, the first set of students, from Dandora, Waruku and Kibera, were four months away from graduation. On August 6th, 2011, 17 young ladies, and 1 young gentleman graduated from that initial program. More than half of the students are either employed, or on attachment with various IT firms within and outside of the *iHub. One of them, Janice Wangari, is currently interning with AkiraChix.

Determined to learn from our past experiences from running the 2010 – 2011 program, AkiraChix applied for a grant and won funding from Google RISE in January 2012 . A strategy meeting was held to plan the next training class as well. Recruitment was done in Kawangware, Deep Sea and Satellite, and about 60 young ladies were interviewed at the end of February 2012. As much as we would have loved to have all the 60 young ladies attend our classes, the training program can only accomodate 20, and it is from this pool of 60 that we selected 20 ladies, with unique and touching stories, and promising futures ahead of them.

We are therefore pleased to announce that the 2nd AkiraChix Training program began on 19th March 2012.

Training program students during orientation

The year long course, which revolves around computer literacy, programming, design, and entrepreneurship, is being held at SODNET offices from Monday to Friday between 9 a.m and 12 p.m.

Linda and Marie welcoming the girls to class

This year, our pool of trainers consists of the following amazing and talented individuals:-

• Anthony Njoroge
• Anthony Mwangi
• Bernard Owuor
• Gideon Thande
• James Muendo
• Salim Mohammed
• Susan Mwange
• Jepchumba

Many thanks to the Consolata Shrine Parish office, which helped distribute application letters to prospective students, and Philip and Kip of SODNET for their continued support of AkiraChix and generosity by giving us free space to conduct our classes at their offices. We are forever indebted to you.

If you are interested in participating or contributing to this training program, or have any questions, please send an email to info@akirachix.com .

M2Work Competition for Microwork

Microwork follows a simple concept: numerous people around the world are earning money by completing small digital tasks. Microwork has vast potential to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in developing countries, where the key is mobile technology. Currently, microworkers need access to computers, which are expensive and require infrastructure. But if they could work on their mobile phones, considering the approximately 5 billion phones in developing countries, this could have an enormous job creation potential in the developing world.

m2Work is your chance to shape the future of microwork and to make a difference for thousands of microworkers in the developing world. Your mobile microwork application can be the key to provide them with a job and additional income. This is why we want you to submit an idea that is marketable and can have an impact on people’s lives. Your idea needs to concern an existing problem or need that can be addressed by microwork. (For more information, click on the following link: m2Work Background.)

IdeasProjects hosts m2Work for infoDev. Once you click on the “Create an Idea” icon, you will be able to start the submission process. The deadline for submission is April 2. You can refer to the IdeasProject FAQ and contact options for questions about the process or if you have technical difficulties.

There will be a total of US$ 40,000 in prize money, with an individual 1st prize of US$ 20,000. The m2Work jury will also award spot prizes and regional cash prizes. The six finalists, from whom the main prize winner will be selected, will be announced on April 25.

m2Work is a worldwide challenge and a joint project of infoDev and Nokia’s Ideas Project. infoDev is a global partnership program in the World Bank, focusing on technology entrepreneurship and job creation. m2Work wants to fuel the race for the best ideas and to spark a goal-oriented, global discussion on mobile microwork. infoDev will also guide the best mobile innovators to market to execute their vision for a mobile application start-up.

Mobile Garage at Egerton University

This weekend on March 3  from 11 a.m. -3 p.m. Akirachix together with Egerton University Computer Science Students Association (EUCOSSA) will be hosting a Mobile Garage Workshop at the Egerton University- Njoro Campus Computer labs.

The theme for this event is mobile technology and entrepreneurship.

Akirachix is the implementing organization of the Mobile Social Networking in Kenya project sponsored by infoDev. The main aim of the project is to create sustainable businesses for the knowledge economy through mobile applications development. We plan to achieve this by holding social networking activities in Universities and Colleges through an initiative dubbed “Mobile Garage”. Through such events we will look into:

• Opportunities in app development – what is happening in the future?
• How to monetize student apps – build a business case,
• Identify possible ideas for apps for competitions

Speakers lined up for the event include Kate Kiguru, founder of Ukall, Jamilla Abass and Susan Oguya of M-farm among others. We will highlight the work students/developers that we meet at institutions and profile their mobile applications on www.mobilegarage.co.ke. To register for the event go to: http://mobilegarageategerton.eventbrite.com/