Using app to quench thirst for knowledge

For years, Tanzanian students who seek their personal academic advancement have been facing some difficulties on where they can easily access details on scholarship information. With the advancement in technology, their thirst for such information has been quenched and now they have every reason to smile.

As technology has no physical or geographical boundaries, such advancement has also benefited tens of thousands of students across the African continent as they can access scholarship information at their fingertips.

Thanks to Isaya Yunge, a 28-years-old Tanzanian, who came up with SomaApp - a mobile phone software that has revolutionised how scholarships are offered in Africa. Since the beta (test) version was launched in February 2017, some 450 scholarships totalling more than $850,000 a year have been won by students in Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. In almost two years of its existence, more than 2,000 students are currently using SomaApp daily.

Isaya has a passion for technology. At the age of 17, he was selected the UNICEF Africa Youth Ambassador at the 2007 G8 Summit in Berlin, Germany. The founder and chief executive of SomaApps Technologies, the company that created the SomaApp, says he always dreamt of doing something to help his fellow African youth. According to him, SomaApp is an innovation that lives his dream; “Using mobile phone software to address the needs and solving problems facing African communities.”

An idea is born

Isaya and his team came up with the idea after seeing how many domestic and international scholarships go unclaimed each year because young people are simply unaware of them. The app enables students to enter their academic qualifications and the SomaApp search engine then matches them with scholarships they qualify for.

After completing his A-Level education at Taqwa High School in Mwanza Region, Isaya dreamt of attending his higher education at universities abroad. “Coming from a low status family with not so stable background, my education was the responsibility of my mother. This was a major factor that drove my ambition to attain quality education abroad. I felt that after graduating, I would be able to use the power of education to change my life and that of others around me,” says Isaya.

However, his quest for accessing quality education with much better teaching environment did not materialise. He couldn’t manage to secure a fully funded scholarship because he didn’t know how to craft a winning essay as well as how to apply. “I didn’t know where to find these scholarships and I spent two months searching for scholarships online. Despite failing to secure any, I didn’t give up,” he adds.

Isaya says after a long and tiresome process of applying for scholarships online, he realised how hard it is to complete an application and win a scholarship especially for students or young people who are not so exposed to internet. “That is why I wanted to build a better, easy and faster tool to help students win scholarships,” he says.

Isaya had to join the Dar es Salaam-based Institute of Finance Management (IFM) for a Bachelor of Science Degree in Insurance and Risk Management.

While at IFM, he continued applying for opportunities for internships and conferences. He began winning these opportunities. However, he says, during his attendance of such conferences in various countries, he could hardly find another Tanzanian youth taking part. “It was very likely to find 10 or more young people from Nigeria or Kenya attending such conferences. I used to ask myself why I am alone from Tanzania.”

“I discovered that most young people back home have no information of hundreds of available opportunities for them to learn, expose their thinking and ideas, network and build mutual partnerships despite hundred of websites that offer such opportunities,” he explains.

Isaya says in 2014 he was invited to attend the World Forum for Democracy in Strasbourg, France at the European Parliament and he was fortunate to attend the sessions for EU diplomats, Member of Parliament, policymakers and political analysts. The session was officiated by Jeremy Rifkin, a US economist.

“He talked about the Third Industrial Revolution, Collaborative commons and the sharing of economy, which is driven by the internet and digital technologies. This was a turning point, and it inspired me to study more about the digital economy and the mobile app business, which led me to launch SomaApps Technologies Company Limited together with my co-founders,” he says.

“But along the way, we’ve created a sustainable business that will enable us to have income, continue innovating and improving the platform to serve many people better. We have been testing our theory for a year, we are confident that SomaApp will go viral over the coming years. We are currently finalising our sustainable business model to introduce payment models by this year,” he explains.

Solving the problem

SomaApp is a product designed to help students reduce high cost of university education by accessing scholarships. The cost of college and university rise every year hence students and parents are forced to take out student loans to pay for the tuition fees and other cost of living. “This put many students in insurmountable debt but there is an alternative; fully funded scholarship,” he says.

Isaya says the hardest part is that such opportunities for fully funded scholarships are extremely difficult to find. “They are scattered over the Internet thus million dollars in free money are not well utilised as many students don’t know if the money exist,” says Isaya.

Now Isaya and his colleagues seem to have done something productive for not only students and their parents but also to teachers and institutions. “Most SomaApp users are high school students, undergraduate and graduate students, parents, teachers, educational institutions, embassies, start-up groups and organisations,” he says.

“Some of the users have decades of experience in education and they have shown experience to join hands while others have joined us to support our endeavour to create one million skilled youth through fully funded scholarships by 2030,” he adds.

Through SomaApps, students have managed to fulfil their dreams by accessing fully funded scholarship. “Students enter their academic qualifications and SomaApp search engine fetches a personalized list of scholarships they qualify for in seconds,” he explains.

This year alone, according to Isaya, some 100 students have managed to go abroad (China) to learn new technology and to get new skills. In 2017, some 450 students had their education fully funded and went to colleges and universities in China, Australia, German, Japan, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United State.

Due to positive results SomaApp has brought, Isaya says they are now in discussion with some countries which offers fully funded scholarships to students that could see the beneficiaries sign a contract putting commitment before joining universities that upon completion of their studies they would return to their country of origin so as to bring and share positive changes with their fellow countrymen.

“We have to do this to ensure that scholarship beneficiaries return to their home countries after completion of their studies abroad and help solving problems for the development of their countries,” he says.

“After sometimes, they are free to go and look for other opportunities wherever they want,” adds the 28-years-old Isaya, who to a great extent has been inspired by the works and achievement of people like Elon Musk, Masayoshi Son, Jack Ma, Reginald Mengi, Ali Mufuruki and Bill Gate.

Isaya says he hates poverty and his life’s mission is to create wealth and be able to alleviate poverty in his community just like what the above-mentioned personalities have done with their philanthropic initiatives.

“When growing up, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and Nelson Mandela were my role model. They still are in some traits that I look up to from their outstanding on humanity and well lived legacy for Africa,” he adds.

More innovations in the pipeline

Last year Isaya attended an annual Diaspora meeting where health issues were among hot topics which were discussed. It was from the meeting that Isaya came up with another idea to implement; SomaFit - a smart watch with code name SF v.1 from an award winning innovative startup in Tanzania.

Currently, the water proof smart watch consists of several features, including two de-detaching wristbands and shake to snapshots. It can also measure blood pressure and heart beats rate. It can also be used in sport tracking and care capabilities. It offers a power usage capacity of about 7-12 days and a GPS to find your phone configurations.

“You can use the smart watch to find your misplaced smart phone. It is also adaptable to change and future upgrades through a mobile App #somaFitavailable which can be accessed in both Android and iOS,” he explains.

“Let me present the next evolutionary step; a charging wireless solution. A smart bracelet with the state-of-the-art bluetooth integration, a built-in sleep monitor, easy touch controls and durable nylon construction, USB-C plug in, and a 12 days usage charge capacity,” he boasts.

According to him, by using wristbands as the technical focal point, the system retains full modularity. “It gives users the freedom to choose and allowing existing and stylish customers to upgrade to different wristband of different colours,” he elaborates, saying the gadget is designed in Tanzania by SomaApps Technologies and assembled in China.

According to him, SomaFit is also useful for people with albinism as when wearing it can sense when a person is in danger and send a report direct to a mobile phone. It can track the exact location of the person. “It can also help to alert someone that the user of a heart problem as it monitors heart beats and hormones. In this way, you can help the person by telling him/her through your android phone to go for health check-up,” he explains.

“SomaFit watch can record your entire timetable, which can be given to a doctor and help him to see or monitor your heart beat. Also you can be able to advice if the user is in danger,” he adds.

Through his creativity, Isaya won several awards in 2017. He won three awards with his start-up innovation being just one year old. He was the winner of the Bits & Bytes Pitch Competition in March 2017. He also won the most prominent GSMA Africa Mobile Money Hackathon in July 2017 and bootstrapped his start-up to early stage growth without any investors. Recently, he won the prestigious award; The Queens Young Leaders Awards 2018.

UTILITY

How do you feel about the way your creativity is being experienced by others?

I am real happy to see that we can create a positive impact to others and the stories we here from our users makes us feel strongly that as young people we are responsible for creating the change we want to ourselves and those around us. We can’t be everything to everyone, but we can be something to someone...even a lot of someone’s and if our innovations can be helpful to others, we feel grateful and empowered to continue innovating.

Do you use creativity to express your life style?

I constant do that, but in most case I love to use creativity to address the needs and challenges of my societies and creating solutions for the mass in any form that creativity allows me to represent my ideas.

What are your reasons for sharing your work with others via the World Wide Web?

The web, particularly a mobile device is the future. If anyone is not in it or using or creating solutions around these platforms they are losing especially if they want to stay relevant, they will disappear. So, we believe the internet is a very crucial tool to create sustainable developments to marginalized societies and a tool for inclusion.

Do you consider yourself to be different from other people? If so, how does this affect you?

I believe so, everyone is unique from everyone. I think am considered crazy and disruptive at least in most of my classes that what are most teachers think of me, at the university my business law teacher referred as a Black sheep because in most cases I will go my own answering my exams or assignments. It makes me stand out, it sometimes makes me miss-understood and considered too risky.

Did other people accept your work at first or did it take some effort on your part to be recognized by others?

It was difficult, people did not accept me easily, or understood me easily because of my disruptiveness and always wanting to be creative in tackling things. Interestingly, outside of my country am more understood and accepted than home, I think it’s because of our mindset that people don’t accept change or new idea easily they think just because something works it can’t be improved, and being a solution-centric person I always want to see improvements and change things so they work better.

Which creative people do you admire? Why?

I admire Elon Musk, Sheria Ngowi, Mansa Mussa, Steve Jobs, Kanye West, Steven Kanumba and Walt Disney. Because they demonstrate that conversional wisdom is always wrong. They embody some trait that challenges the status quo in their different fields of work and they affirm to me that starting from humble beginnings have the greatest rewards.

How would you describe your personality?

I am an unshakable optimist, I love God, Futurist, a visionary thinker with a rare intellect, an entrepreneurship enthusiast who turns ideas to reality, and is a tireless advocate for youth involvement in creating innovative solutions. I don’t settle for mediocrity and I love to solve problems.

What has been your biggest challenge?

It’s been difficult to get the capital we want to innovate solutions, and tax is our biggest pain. I always wonder how our government taxing startup is and give tax heavens to foreign investors? This is one of the biggest challenge as an App startup you don’t make money your first years because your researching and developing, proving if your idea will work but even during that stage you have to pay different taxes. It’s so painful and hinders growth for local tech startups to grow.

What is your biggest success up until now?

Winning The Queens Young Leaders Awards, and travelling to meet the Queen in Buckingham Palace this year June, 2018. Also, to finally launch our products which started as ideas I consider this y biggest success today.

What one thing would you change if you had to do it over?

I would start my company earlier than I did. I would go back in tine and start my company back in 2007 when I was 17 years old.

What are you proud of?

Am very proud of my mother for always being strong helping me, sometimes I don’t even know how she did it but am grateful and very proud of her strength and love. And, am also proud of team at Somaapps Technologies, my co-founders for their incredible charisma and dedication, am very proud to learn so much from all of them.

What are your hobbies?

I love readings books, books are my addiction because I find myself having intellectual discussion with the author and in every month I read four books. I also enjoy travelling and learning new things, it can be a language or a course, and watching for cooking channels.