ForgetMeNot Africa on Sunday announced the ultimate winners of the Kipokezi app hackathon.
Nick Hargreaves and his team of developers, with their app dubbed Tokelezea that enables users to search and list upcoming events, were named as the winners of the challenge.
“After finding an interesting event, users can view details such as description, address, date and time. From here they can choose to check-in (tokelezea) and invite their friends,” Hargreaves said.
“All of this happens on a basic SMS capable phone with no Internet access. Tokelezea has a mobile Web version that shows the event page with information, and allows the user to locate the address on a map,” he added.
David Leimayan, came in second with his Kenya premier league app. The app features soccer news, fixtures, results and table standing without accessing the Internet.
Other apps included KaziPlatform by Mwema Jacob, which helps users to get job information by sending a text message. Bosco Wambua presented two app, Ujingani, a joke subscription app and Numberfacts, which allows users to access number-specific facts.
The seven finalists went on a 48-hour coding session to polish up their apps.
The Kipokezi app challenge was meant to spur mobile apps that don’t use data solely relying on SMS or USSD exchange.
ForgetMeNot Africa has been an advocate to get users without data enabled phones to access Internet services, through the Kipokezi platform.
The 2-day hackathon event ended on May 6. The winner will receive $2,000, an iPad and a chance to have the app hosted by Safaricom, Kenya’s leading mobile phone network operator.
