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Digital marketing solution wins R1m in Hack.Jozi challenge

Digital marketing solution wins R1m in Hack.Jozi challenge

16th July 2015

By: Creamer Media Reporter

  

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From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, this is the Real Economy Report.
The City of Johannesburg last week awarded R5-million in cash and support to the top three winners of its inaugural Hack.Jozi Challenge. Sashnee Moodley tells us more.

Sashnee Moodley:
The Hack.Jozi Challenge, a competition for Johannesburg-based start-up entrepreneurs, aims to foster skills, innovation and entrepreneurship in digital technology.

The competition was launched in February of this year and last week culminated in a formal awards ceremony, where the top three winners were announced.

First place was awarded to moWallet for the PopApp Deals – a white label digital marketing app that enables retail brands to offer incentives to customers to move products off the shelves of spaza shops in townships.

moWallet Founder and Chief Technical Officer Desmond Mongwe:
The way in which it works, it allows a retail brand to deliver coupons in townships’ spaza shops so that will enable customers in these new segments to enable and pay their coupons.

We see everyone benefitting from the app. So retail brands benefit by creating a new channel to distribute their coupons, increase sales and create a customer database. Spaza shop owners, we see them benefitting by having loyal customers and increased sales and the community at large, we see them benefitting by being able to redeem coupons and vouchers in their back yards and they don’t have to travel long distances anymore.  We expect to see NGOs, municipalities and those who were already giving food vouchers and parcels will now start using the platform to distribute those. Lastly, we believe that we will start to see SMEs in the communities, as well as other companies, to start trading with each other.
Imagine a hair salon – hairstylist – giving a customer who has paid R300 to do her hair to say “Thank you for supporting my business, here is a R20 voucher to spend in your nearest spaza shop”. So this is all about improving a township economy.

I think it’s a growth opportunity to actually being in the top ten. We have learnt a lot from our training from the preparation and also the companies that have been involved in this, sharing ideas, helping us get prepared to have something that would potentially be used in the City of Johannesburg area.

Sashnee Moodley:
moWallet received R1-million for business development and the two runners-up each received R350 000.

The winners will also receive support in various forms, with the aim of providing opportunities for them to market their ideas.

Second place was awarded to Lazy Lizzard for the Teachinator ¬– an educational app that runs on mobile devices and that aligns to the South African school curriculum. The app allows learners to work through their schoolwork independently and allows parents to track the learners’ progress.

Lazy Lizzard owner and founder Niel Pieters:
There are a few components to this system. The primary of which is the administration website to which a parent or teacher could go to guide the children or track their progress.
There is the app that they would use to work through the content. The website and the app seamlessly integrate with each other and they all do this behind the scenes. There is no human intervention normally required to make this happen apart from if there is an update and you want to force the application to sink. Apart from that there is a pretty seamless integration. So, mom could sit at work and she could type out a few things on the app and the moment the child finishes school and has to start doing homework, whatever mom did at work is available immediately on the app on their side.
What the app does is that it has the curriculum content, or it has whatever mom and dad loaded on, whatever subject matter it is that the children need to learn.  It has some artificial intelligence and gamification, like shiny graphics, sounds, simple stuff for the moment but gamification aspects and it will use a combination of those things to allow the children to work through their schoolwork. Much in the same way as when a child plays a game, doesn’t have anyone instructing how the game works, but he learns how the game works and the rules of the game as he goes along.

I didn’t realise that the need for my product was as well defined as it is, or as big or encompassing as it is and that is something I wouldn’t have gotten had I not taken part in Hack.Jozi. Having to go through an entire process with all the teams and the top ten teams was fantastic, it’s second to none, its something I really enjoyed. Its a lot of hard work. I’m very proud.

Sashnee Moodley:
Meanwhile, third place was awarded to the MoveThisStuff quoting and logistic engine, which provides free quotes and free move-coordination to the public.

MoveThisStuff Founder and CEO Percy Lawrence
Our product is MoveThisStuff. What it is in a nutshell is an Uber for removals. If you know the Uber taxi service, we do the same but for removals. It is real-time, instant and long-term. So you can book a move a month ahead, six months ahead or you can request a transport right now to move something for you.

The process to get on is quite straight forward. You open our website movethistuff.com. If you’re on social media, lets say you use Twitter, you just click on the sign with the Twitter button and it is instant. Same with Facebook. If you want to sign in with your email address, we ask for an email address and phone number to pre validate you in case you make a quote request to suppliers and then its instant access and its also free.

I’m chuffed and surprised because there are a lot of good ideas. When we started I was sure we had the most amazing product. But as we went through the process, you could see that there are a lot of good ideas being polished off.

Sashnee Moodley:
The inaugural Hack.Jozi Challenge was a test case for future competitions. The City of Johannesburg has set aside a budget of R5-million for the next challenge, but it hopes to also garner funding from the private sector to co-fund particular aspects of the next challenge.

Shannon de Ryhove:
Other news making headlines this week: Inland terminal rapid rail master plans urged for new coal basins; and the South African steel industry faces a global oversupply.

A new logistical concept involving the overland conveying of coal to inland terminals for processing prior to rapid railing to ocean terminals is being proposed for new coal basins.

Logiman associate director technology Lyonell Fliss

A global oversupply of steel, compounded by shrinking demand and subsidised steel imports, especially from China, are some of the factors that have contributed to the industry’s decline over the past three years.

Southern African Institute of Steel Construction CEO Paolo Trinchero

That’s Creamer Media’s Real Economy Report. Join us again next week for more news and insight into South Africa’s real economy.

Edited by Shannon de Ryhove
Contributing Editor

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