Nine applications last week were confirmed as the winners of the MTN OpenAPI App Challenge. The nine were part of 23 other finalists that made to the final pitches at the Innovation Village on Friday last week. The MTN Open API challenge 2018 was fully managed online. Participants registered to create applications in any of the following categories: Transport, Hotel/Restaurant/Café and distribution in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods value chain.

The developers pitched to a panel of judges that eventually decided on the top 9. The top 3 in each category will win a cash prize and also be eligible to compete for seed capital from the Shs1bn MTN Innovation Fund.

Transport:

Winner

Easy Matatu – An mobile app that enables carpooling using matatu’s.

1^st Runner Up

Endobo – A cashless payment system for public transport.

2^nd Runner up

Yo! Waste – A mobile based application that links garbage generators to garbage collectors.

Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)

Winner

Minute 5 – An online shopping platform developed to make grocery shopping easy for those who cannot move to the market.

1^st Runner Up.

Poweli Pay – Users have the ability to pay for goods by either tapping or scanning a code.

2^nd Runner Up

Engineering Connections – A mobile app that connects contractors in construction to order for construction materials

HORECA

Winner

App About – An app that enables Hotel/Restaurant/Café owners to make pre-sales for events and theme nights

1^st Runner Up

Epay – An app the enables Hotel/Restaurant/Café owners accepts mobile money payments with ease through the generation of payment codes.

2^nd Runner Up

Sowani – An app that works for both Hotel/Restaurant/Café owners and customers by enabling reservations and online booking using mobile money.

The MTN Open API Challenge was done in partnership with the Innovation village. It came as a result of MTN opening its Mobile Money APIs in November 2018. In the challenge, local developers are exposed API end points to digitize payments in their applications.

Monzer Ali, the MTN Uganda acting General Manager, Mobile Financial Services said that MTN would continue supporting the growth of the innovation ecosystem in Ugandan.

“Today we have made an important milestone as the developers start turning their ideas into reality. We are looking to stimulate traffic to your payment platforms. For those that did not win, we encourage you not to give up on your dream,” Monzer said while addressing the developers at the Innovation Village.

MTN has supported local innovation through platforms like the MTN App challenge and the MTN Innovation Awards. MTN want its infrastructure to be leveraged by local start-ups. Opening the Mobile Money API was further testimony to this intent.

MTN will be awarding the cash prizes to the nine application by April 2019.