35 students in the Safaricom Academy demonstrated the mobile applications they have developed on Friday at Strathmore University. The students have for the last four weeks been under tutelage of instructors from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A total of 9 applications were presented in a new state of the art Student Center which also hosts a new incubation and innovation lab. The event was witnessed by Bitange Ndemo, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communication and Nzioka Waita, Safaricom’s head of Legal and Regulatory affairs amongst other key players in the ICT sector. Safaricom Academy is a partnership between Safaricom, Strathmore University’s ilabAfrica research institute and Vodafone to develop mobile applications to exploit opportunities created by the fast growing telecommunication industry. Top applications presented include Digilaw, Chagua Plus and iShopper which emerged third, second and first respectively. Chagua plus is a mobile and SMS based school and college course recommendation system which rates schools and courses offered. Chagua Plus also plans to allow students to query the results of universities Joint Admission Board selections.

Digilaw is a mobile web application that maintains a Law Society of Kenya (LSK) accredited list of lawyers according to their area of specialization, a directory of Kenyan Law and a blog that breaks down laws and their effects to society.
iShopper is a mobile web shopping application that facilitates shopping, ordering, payment and optional delivery of supermarket products. The app pulls data from partnering supermarket databases and plans to charge Ksh 50 per kilometer for delivery. The app has an alternate revenue stream through sales commissions.
Other apps include Foodpoa, Mpira, Okoa Maisha, Tazama, eBima and Real Property.
Foodpoa is an app that enables online ordering of food from restaurants. The application makes revenues though order commissions.
Mpira is a mobile and SMS based app that provides real time Kenya Premier League statistics including team rankings, live match plays and player profiles. The application generates revenue from premium SMS and adverts.
Okoa Maisha is web and mobile app that connects volunteers to their nearest blood donation centers. The developers plan to generate revenue by charging a commission on referrals to blood collection centres.
Tazama is a Global Positioning System (GPS) devices application that enables vehicle tracking and traffic status notifications. Revenue will be through sales, and traffic status subscriptions.
eBima is mobile apps that maintains a list of insurance policies and through which  users can check for validity of their insurance policies.
Real Property is a mobile real estate app which lists properties for sale and rent. The app generates revenues from commissions.
PS Ndemo commended the University for the effort it had put in innovation and research saying that Kenya planned to be a leading country in research and development. The PS also lauded Safaricom for their partnership with the academic institution.
Nzioka said that Safaricom had invested Ksh 20 million in the upcoming innovation lab, iLabAfrica. Safaricom had also set up partnerships with other universities in the country to ensure the firm would have access to qualified graduates. This included curriculum development with two of the institutions.
Commenting on the applications presented, Ken Mwenda, managing director eMobilis mobile training academy said that “Kenya is getting into mobile 2.0. The calibre of applications we are seeing is quite high and they are thinking about the business logic.”
Joseph Sevilla, ilabAfrica’s director was quite appreciative of Safaricom support. Sevilla said that the presentation of the applications had attracted a good turnout. “I think the industry is appreciating our efforts and seeing value in what we are doing,” he said, adding that more partners were expected to come in.
The director said that they were now discussing with the groups on how their ideas could be taken to market.
Sevilla said that ilabAfrica would hold events with the aim of promoting innovation in addition to research projects and writing ICT for development (ICT4DEV) applications in health and education.
Located on two floors in the same building hosting Strathmore Universities new Student Centre, ilabAfrica has capacity for 100 students. ilabAfrica will support the students in a variety of ways such as accessing seed capital and potential investors; mentoring programmes to help develop realistic business plans, registering their businesses, intellectual property advice, networking opportunities; physical resources such as office space and facilities; access to relevant library resources; access to a variety of mobile phones, short codes, SMS gateways, M-PESA Pay Bill accounts and other resources for application testing.