On April 5th, 2012 all but one of this years Apps4Africa winners were honored at TEDxAccra at the Kofi Annan Center for Excellence in ICT. Other speakers included SpotOne Global Director Marieme Jamme, Mayor of Accra Alfred Vanderpuiye, Apps4Africa Director and TED Senior Fellow Jon Gosier, University of Ghana Senior Lecturer Professor Chris Gordon, Mpedigree inventor and Ashoka Fellow Bright Simmons, Google Africa staffer Ato Ulzen-Appiah, and ThoughtWorks Inc. founder Neville Roy Singham to name a few.
Victor Ogo Ekwueme (Winner of the West Africa $15,000 1st prize) delivered a white paper on his winning entry Hospital Manager, which uses artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to forecast hospital needs based on weather patterns. Assane Seck (winner of the West Africa $7,000 2nd Prize) presented his project Eco-fund Forum which is a geo-localized web community that helps individuals and communities working on sustainable resource management throughout Africa to share their experiences and best practices. Mkulima Bora was presented by Gerry Nadwa (winner of the East Africa $7,000 2nd Prize). Mkulima Bora uses geo-location features and a database of agricultural facts to alert users as to which types of actions they need to take to improve farming results based on where they are. Sanya Duncan (winner of the East Africa $3,000 3rd prize) delivered his speech on Agro Universe. The aim of Agro Universe is to create a regional marketplace where products can be sold that may have no demand in the user’s immediate area but that might in areas farther out. Alloysius Attah (winner of the West Africa $3,000 3rd prize) delivered a passionate talk about Farmerline, a mobile and web-based system that furnishes farmers and investors with relevant agricultural information to improve productivity and increase income. The Farmerline team also recently won the Mobile Web Ghana apps competition.
Perhaps the highlight of the day was the impassioned congratulatory message Mayor Vanderpuiye gave to Ghanian winner Alloysius Attah for the subsequent success of Farmerline. In life “everywhere there are challenges, there are opportunities”, Mayor Vanderpuiye said as he thanked the young innovators of Apps4Africa for their collective ability to find opportunities in the challenges their respective countries face.
The day culminated with two simulcast presentations from TEDxChange in Berlin, Germany where the Bill and Melinda Gates organized TEDxChange was being held. The first was the moving performance by Senegalese singer Baaba Maal, the second an emotional talk about contraception and family planning by Melinda Gates.
