Did You Know Apps Africa winners will change Africa!

In a previous post we wrote about our favourite AppsAfrica nominees. On the 15th of November, the award ceremony took place in Cape Town and 10 awards were handed out. Domestly (Disruptive innovation) , Flutterwave (Enterprise Solution), and Shule Direct (Women in Tech) were all amongst the winners, but not all of our favourites picked up trophies. Nevertheless, the winners were deserved and also including some incredible innovations that are set to be a part of the change in Africa.

Social Impact Award
Ask without Shame (Uganda)

Talking about sex as a young person in Africa is a taboo in many places. So, getting information regarding sexual health and disease can be difficult. It is very difficult to go and ask teachers, and almost impossible to ask parents or other adults in the community and therefore information spread between the youth and even adults is often false. Ask without Shame, is a platform for all people to ask questions about sexual health anonymously and receive answers without judgement. One of the founders, Ruth, tragically lost family to HIV/AIDS, which, now can be treated, but only if people know the options there for them. This great idea will break down barriers and help the youth pass correct information between each other.

News & Entertainment Award
Battabox (Nigeria)

Local content in Africa is often poor quality and of small quantity. Still now, on TV and the internet, western content is flooding the market. This leaves little local content to enable advertisers to focus their marketing activities. Bettabox have gone about changing this in Nigeria. they produce high quality, click-bait style content, relevant to Nigeria, and pump it out utilising the high smart phone and internet coverage in the country. They have over 550,000 subscribers and have had over 55 million views! There content includes things like Nigerians Speak Out On Donald Trump’s CRAZY Election Victory and Nigeria’s Most Popular Viagra – Back For Round Two!. Definitely worth checking out!

Educational Award
Mwabu (Zambia)

Africa has a teacher shortage. Often under or unqualified “teachers” take control of classes and are not able to effectively train the future of Africa. In many cases private schools hire these unqualified teachers to keep their costs low and maximise profits. Often in Africa, children are parrot fed information and required to repeat what they have heard when they write exams, leaving no room from analysis and creativity. Mwabu aims to change this by providing tablets that contains 2000 enquiry based interactive lessons for all primary subjects in both English and local languages, encouraging students to explore, analyse and problem solve. Teachers are able to use this as a tool to effectively teach a class.

Social and Messaging Award
Vula Mobile (South Africa)

Vula is one of the most exciting apps around in #Africa (This should have definitely featured in our favourites!) Receiving health care in parts of Africa can be challenging, especially when the health care facility is so small that there are no specialists located there. Vula is a social app that enables health care workers to have direct access to specialists when dealing with a patient with specialist needs. For example, the app is able to run through a step by step system to take pictures of eyes, which can then be sent directly to whichever eye specialist is on call at that moment. They can then analyse the data and send back their advice, utilising instant messaging.

When a specialist goes ‘On Call’ they will receive all the messages that are for his/her speciality. To make sure there is always someone available when the doctor goes off duty, he/she is required to nominate the next specialist. Therefore, a health worker can choose which hospital or specialist to be connected to, depending on the needs of the patient, and get instant feedback. This could really fill the gap in rural Africa.

Congratulations to all the award winners and those that were shortlisted! We would have liked to feature everyone of you! If you want to be featured, contact us! If you have any comments Tweet us at @InventiveAfrica and please also share the blog on Twitter and Facebook.