AppDate: Ambani shines in business app awards

MTN Business App of the Year awards

Ambani Africa App has been named MTN Business App of the Year and won prize money of R1-million, after winning three separate categories. Winners in each of the categories were:

• Best Enterprise Solution: iiDENTIFii app 

iiDENTIFii (identify) is a remote biometric digital authentication technology platform. 

• Most Innovative Solution: Hellopay SoftPOS 

SoftPOS is a contactless payment app that enables merchants to accept electronic payments by turning an NFC Android phone into a card acceptance device. 

• Best Health Solution: Guardian Health Platform 

Guardian Health Platform is a tele-health platform that provides services ranging from virtual appointments, appointment bookings, digital records and remote monitoring for patients to track their vitals. 

• Best Gaming Solution: Ambani Africa 

The Ambani Africa app is a free gaming app for learners of African languages. The app features six languages with various themes and games for both learning and practising. The app also links to an augmented reality app, which works with a set of ebooks.  

• Best Agricultural Solution: Murimi  

This app gives farmers access to automated crop diagnostics such as health, pest infestation and nutrient needs. It uses machine learning algorithms and provides an image of the crops in order to generate the report. The app then allows the user to buy recommended pesticides and fertilisers. 

• Best Educational Solution: Ambani Africa 

The Ambani Africa app is a free gaming app for learners of African languages. The app features six languages with various themes and games for both learning and practising. The app also links to an augmented reality app, which works with a set of ebooks. 

• Best Financial Solution: Shyft 

Shyft enables users to buy and sell foreign exchange and international shares. It also lets one send money abroad as well as pay for goods and services in foreign currencies.  

• Best Hackathon Solution: Sisa 

Sisa helps South Africans deal with mental illnesses like anxiety, substance abuse and depression.

• Best ‘South African’ App: Ambani Africa 

The Ambani Africa app is a free gaming app for learners of African languages. The app features six languages with various themes and games for both learning and practising. The app also links to an augmented reality app, which works with a set of ebooks.  

• Best Campus Cup Solution: UniWise

UniWise summarises different university offerings for students. They can enter their marks and search for a course they would like to apply for at any of the supported institutions. 

• Best African Solution: Kazi  

Kazi puts users in touch with companies and individuals that offer basic services like cleaning, cooking and laundry. Maintenance, repairs, painting and furniture assembly services can also be found.

• Best Consumer Solution: Takealot app 

A local online store allowing one to purchase thousands of products ranging from groceries to IT equipment.

• Best Women in STEM: Rekindle Learning app 

Rekindle Learning helps women adapt to the changing world of work by teaching them new skills in science, technology engineering and maths (STEM). 

• Huawei Category 15: Roadsave  

RoadSave keeps users safe with access to 24/7 emergency support and offers discounts on various vehicle parts and services.

• People’s Choice Award: Afrihost 

The Afrihost App gives customers access to its ClientZone. This allows them to manage their hosting services, check up on network status and add new services to their profile without needing to contact the call centre.

“In celebrating the tenth anniversary of MTN Business App of the Year Awards, entries in the event have grown to over 1,000 this year,” says Wanda Matandela, chief business enterprise officer of MTN Business.

“What is more important is the new type of developers that have emerged over the years – they are now as likely to be young entrepreneurs launching grocery delivery services as actuaries challenging the dominance of traditional insurance giants,” he concludes.

For more information visit the MTN Business App of the Year web page here.

Liberty Stash

Liberty’s Stash tax-free investment app illustrates the difference in investment outlooks in different age groups and living circumstances in South Africa. 

“Generally younger users put aside less money per month than older users, most likely because they earn less,” says Liberty’s Stash app lead, Glenn Grimley. “But the fact that they are putting some money aside regardless is encouraging. They also tend to use Stash to create emergency savings. An example of this was when the first Covid lockdown came around, the number of Stash users jumped considerably.”

The app has two investment portfolios: a low risk Cash + portfolio, which offers a guaranteed 3.5% percent growth per year; and the SA Top 40 Shares portfolio, which is an equity portfolio that tracks the performance of the FTSE/JSE Top 40 shares index, including dividends. Since the launch of the Cash + portfolio last year, about two thirds of all new investments are made into that portfolio, which correlates with the need to create emergency savings post-lockdown.

Grimley believes that the reason for the growing popularity of Stash is that it enables people to start investing without all the paperwork and bureaucracy. Customers also have full control over how much and when they invest, as the account can be accessed at anytime on their phone via the app.

Platform: Any device with an up-to-date Internet browser. Android, iOS and Huawei apps are also available

Expect to pay: A free download

Stockists: Visit Liberty’s Stash page here for more information

Stokfella

Community-driven stokvels have met the money needs of their members by opening access to funding for everything from funerals to school fees. However, although the schemes provide regular paydays, they do not build wealth. Tshepo Moloi, a mining-engineer-turned-banker, realised that things could be different, and built Stokfella. 

As a digital platform, Stokfella addresses a younger generation of savers and investors (average age about 35) who are comfortable with the stokvel traditions, but want to accumulate funds and build future wealth. 

“They want stokvels to work for them and open up investment opportunities by using accumulated funds from like-minded people to invest in property for example, where they can benefit from the growth of property values and also through rentals,” says Moloi. 

Stokfella encourages people to participate as group investors in activities like transport and logistics, buy franchises and even invest in start-ups buying machinery to produce retail products. The one constant of the offering with the stokvel principle is that everyone contributes, and everyone shares the benefits. 

Stokfella also assists those who want to start community-based initiatives, by helping with structuring governance measures that safeguard investors. 

Platform: Any device with an up-to-date Internet browser

Expect to pay: A free service

Stockists: Visit the Stokfell page here for more information.

kulula.com updated app

kulula.com has unveiled a new mobile app, which provides travellers with a quicker way to book a flight.

“On average it used to take our customers 23 minutes to book a flight,” says Avsharn Bachoo, Cokmair CIO. “The kulula.com app reduces this time to ten minutes.”

The app offers most of the information regarding a flight reservation, and allows Comair to integrate with multiple partners in the travel sector, including hotels and car-hire companies. 

Platform: Any device with an up-to-date Internet browser.

Expect to pay: A free download

Stockists: Visit kulula.com here for downloading instructions or to make a reservation

Bolt’s Work Rides

Bolt’s updated app now includes Work Profiles. This feature automatically sends work-ride tax receipts to programs like SAP Concur, or to any email address – making it easier to submit tax claims.

Work Rides also allows one to add an alternative payment method for business-related rides, like a company credit card.

To get started, users click on the Work Rides section, and create a profile, with information like where the receipts need to be sent and how payment will be made.

Platform: Android and iOS

Expect to pay: A free download

Stockists: Visit Bolt here for installation instructions.