We are a startup and we are growing, developing over 10 products that are yet to enter into market and somaapp is a products that define what we believe and hopes to accomplish, we aspire to create solutions for our community, as we believe strongly that we know what young people are going through, we have been there, we are there, but we won't stay there forever because we are creating the tools that we need, the tools that will give us all power in our hands, the tools that are powered by our smartphones.
Somaapp: A mobile app that lists and matches East African youth with thousands of domestic and international fully funded opportunities.
We offer Fully Funded domestic and International Education Opportunities on a mobile App, an easy way to access cost-free opportunities.
Written by Isaya Yunge
EXPLAIN YOUR IDEA
Somaapp is a mobile app that lists and matches East African students with thousands of domestic and international scholarships. Students enters their academic qualifications and SOMA fetches a personalized list of scholarships they qualify for. The problem SOMAAPP is a product designed to help students with the high cost of university education. The cost of college and university rise every year hence students and parents are forced to take out student loans to pay the tuition fees and other cost of living. This put many students in insurmountable debt but there is an alternative; FULLY FUNDED OPPORTUNITIES. The only problem is these opportunities are extremely hard to find, scattered over the Internet, this causes million dollars in free money to go to waste, as many students don't know this money exist. According to the survey carried out by the African economic outlook, 54% of respondents found a mismatch of skills between what job seekers have to offer and what employers require to be a major obstacle because university graduate are under educated due to poor quality education.WHO BENEFITS?
Somaapp iterated layout
In order to achieve full and equal access to quality education and participation in economic activities, and to further achieve gender equality and girls’ empowerment, there need to be greater opportunities made available to girls and an increase in investments around girls’ education. This is where we come in with Somaapp!
Online Ads: We expect to empower talented young girls who are often left out on education and mentoring, this platform will give everyone equal opportunity without any barriers.
TELL US MORE ABOUT YOU
Donovan Livingstone and Lauren N West Livingstone both were inspired by the impact story and the power that we can give young people in Africa through mobile phones and mobile apps.
These two will be supporting Somaapp in a long run by providing/sharing opportunities and recommending the App to opportunities providers in the US to list their opportunities those which targets East Africans youth on our mobile platform.
I was invited to speak about Somaapp at the Council Of Europe during the feedback phase and I used the Opportunity to tell the story for WHY , Somaapp. My presentation attracted many supporter's and some volunteered to help spread the word and recommend the app to youth East Africa.
here is a video of one of our supporters encouraging Girls to download the app and use it.
Somaapp team working on the idea through the Human Centered Design principles.
Somaapp team working on the idea through the Human Centered Design principles.
Somaapp team working on the idea through the Human Centered Design principles.
Somaapp team working on the idea through the Human Centered Design principles.
Somaapp team working on the idea through the Human Centered Design principles.
Somaapp team working on the idea through the Human Centered Design principles.
Somaapps Company Logo.
Isaya Yunge, Founder and CEO of Somaapps http://www.somaapps.com/
WHERE WILL YOUR IDEA BE IMPLEMENTED?
- Kenya
- Rwanda
- Tanzania
- Uganda
EXPERIENCE IN IMPLEMENTATION COUNTRY(IES)
- Yes, for more than one year.
EXPERTISE IN SECTOR
- I’ve worked in a sector related to my idea for over a year
HOW HAS YOUR IDEA CHANGED BECAUSE OF BENEFICIARY FEEDBACK?
A new look of our idea, more simplified following the feedback of intended users after undergoing a human centered design for couple of weeks. This has become simple, easy to use, and as we roll out our beta version continuing to iterate as we receive feedback from users.
HOW IS YOUR IDEA UNIQUE?
There are currently no other services similar to Somaapp in East Africa region, using a peer-to-peer mobile app platform, More importantly many of these platform are on the website platform where they are scammed, making these information scattered. Most potential competitors operate in only one country and are based on an ‘Paid App Model’ rather than crowdsourcing or as we call it ‘AppSourcing’ - a model that Somaapp feels is ultimately un-scalable and unsustainable for the nature of African millennial and poverty factor. We believe that by unlocking the power of sharing equal opportunities and sharing of information young people can improve their skills and potential. Today at least one member in every household in Tanzania and Africa uses smartphones, hence we can reach more people with solutions right in their hands, students can use their parent’s smartphones to access these opportunities and apply. An app to make helping people a lot easier, sharing opportunities to enhance quality education is why I strongly believe this is the unique advantage that I have.WHY DO YOU THINK THAT THE PROBLEM YOUR IDEA SOLVES FOR HAS NOT BEEN SOLVED?
80% of students in Africa don’t pass secondary school, while 4 out of 5 adults in english speaking Africa don’t finish high school so enabling education delivery is critical. Creating equal opportunities for accessing quality education is a crucial way to empower young people with skills necessary to shape their future as they grow up, the fact that there is free money which goes un-claimed every year and our goal is make this information accessible to rural, urban, refugees, low-income youth.
WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR UNANSWERED QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS IDEA?
- How do we identify value propositions that our users will pay for? -How do we determine pricing? -How can we scale the idea throughout African countries? -How can we know if this has a chance to become a sustainable business, which is effective and efficient considering the rapid change of technology innovation?IS THIS IDEA NEW FOR YOU OR YOUR ORGANIZATION?
I have been working on this idea since 2014 while at the university, and February 2016 I built a team to make it more sustainable. It’s a new idea, Prior to how we are implementing it now- we were using whatsApp to share these opportunities and we saw a problem in a national scale, and our solution was working hence we decided to implement it more proper and with a business perspective.WHO WILL IMPLEMENT THIS IDEA?
We have a team of 5 people across different expertise to help grow Somaapp to make sure that our product is the best it can be, and that it help as many young people as possible. Our teams also build partnerships with other startup, innovation hubs and incubation centers in Dar es Salaam where we continue to learn and grow. To facilitate growth and help millions of young people reach the dreams Somaapps Technologies Company Limited will pioneer this product under my leadership.SHARE ONE SENTENCE ABOUT THE IMPACT YOU WOULD LIKE THIS PROJECT TO HAVE FIVE YEARS FROM NOW, AND ONE QUESTION YOU NEED TO ANSWER TO GET THERE.
To see everyone, from each low-income household in East Africa at-least two children from each family are able to afford access to a quality education, regardless of who they are, where they’re from, or what they have. Qn: How many young people who are currently ( at year 2016/2017) are graduating from college, are supposed to attend university, and what's their gender proportionate?MY ORGANIZATION'S OPERATING BUDGET FOR 2015 WAS:
- Under $100,000
MY INTENDED BENEFICIARIES ARE:
- More than 500 km from where our team does most of its work
HOW LONG HAVE YOU AND YOUR COLLEAGUES BEEN WORKING ON THIS PILOT PROJECT TOGETHER?
- More than a year
55 comments
Join the conversation:
CommentEmpServe Kenya
Isaya Yunge
Isaya Yunge
Isaya Yunge
EmpServe Kenya