Five Ghanaian tech start-ups have been rewarded with a total of GHS130,000 for coming up tops in the maiden MTN Ayoba MoMo Accelerator program.
The five were among ten top start-ups that emerged from hundreds of start-ups who pitched to a panel of judges over a period of eight weeks. Eventually, 18 of the start-ups launched their strong micro-apps on MTN Ayoba super app for the first time.
Over the eight-week period, the competing start-ups were guided by experts from both MTN Ayoba and selected institutions to fine tune their offerings and ready them for the global market via the Ayoba Super App.
Out of the top five – Noni Hub won the Top Tech Hub Award, taking home GHS50,000 and a lifetime partnership with MTN. The other four won GHS20,000 each plus a lifetime partnership with MTN Ayoba.
The four were Africa Global Radio – Most Liked Micro App on Ayoba; TUDU Online Shopping – Best MoMo Solution in Ayoba; Agribusiness/greenhouse produce App SMITHFIELD – Experts Choice Award (picked by the judges) and snails producer DEMASKO Farms won the Top Ayoba Influencer for best use of QR Code for sign ups and engagement.
Chief Digital Officer at MTN Ghana, Dario Bianchi explained that MTN Ayoba came up with the accelerator to encouraged businesses in Africa to digitize their products and services and reach more clients across the continent.
Currently, Ayoba has some 41 million registered accounts with 21 million active users across Africa, out of which there are over two million in Ghana alone.
Dario Bianchi said this presents a huge potential market for start-ups and businesses who sign on to Ayoba and upload their micro apps on it.
“MTN Ayoba Momo Accelerator is the best place to put your product and information out there to the world”, Mr. Bianchi said.
He alluded to the fact that recently he found that fraudsters have started placing their schemes on Ayoba, which is not desirable but also shows that there is huge interest on Ayoba so the fraudsters are targeting the platform.
The Chief Digital Officer of MTN however assured users of the Ayoba platform that the company is already putting measures in place to protect users against fraud.
Manager for Digital Platform at MTN Ghana, Winnie Dzidonu, said currently, MTN Ayoba is free to use for the 18 apps uploaded on it – but there are plans to institute a revenue share between the app owners and MTN in the future.
She expressed appreciation and gratitude to all participants and winners for their great works in supporting MTN Ayoba MoMo Accelerator.
Ayoba is an all-in-one Super App with various features which include chatting, music, games, news, audio and video calls, and access to other apps for various goods and services among other things.
Whilst it is free for MTN users to access that App freely, non-MTN users need data bundle to access the services.
