Gbe La, students of the Ho Technical University, have emerged as the overall winners of the Accra leg of the Mobile Money FinTech Limited innovation challenge.
They won over nine other competing teams with a solution designed to address language barriers in digital financial transactions.
The innovation, which allows users to conduct transactions through voice commands in multiple local languages, was adjudged the best among 10 solutions presented during the southern zone competition.
AutoSave placed second, followed by Virtual Tollbooth and Gantry System (VTAGS) in third place, EcoTrust Fund in fourth place and AdaWise in fifth place.
The five winners each received GH¢5,000, a certificate and souvenirs from sponsors in recognition of their innovations.
The competition forms part of an industry-wide initiative by Mobile Money FinTech Limited to identify and support young innovators developing technology-driven solutions to challenges in the financial services sector.
The 15 finalists, comprising five winners from each of the three zones, will compete at the national grand finale for a GH¢100,000 prize.
1,791 Applications received
Speaking at the event on Friday, November 6, the Chief Product and Services Officer of Mobile Money FinTech Limited, Sylvia Otuo Acheampong, said the competition was designed to bring innovation from outside the organisation by giving young people the opportunity to develop solutions to real customer challenges.
She said innovation focused on making life easier for customers by removing barriers and addressing everyday problems.
Ms Acheampong encouraged participants to prioritise customer needs when developing their solutions, stressing that the value of a product was determined by the customer rather than its developers.
She said participants must demonstrate that their ideas addressed clearly identified problems and could be developed into feasible products, services or experiences.
Ms Acheampong also urged the judges to provide constructive feedback to enable the participants to improve on their innovations ahead of the national competition.
She said the competition had attracted 1,791 applications from young people across the country, describing the response as encouraging.
The Tamale Zone, Ms Acheampong said, recorded 12 ideas, with five selected to progress, while the Kumasi Zone received 415 applications, out of which 99 ideas were shortlisted to progress.
The Accra competition featured 10 presentations covering areas such as savings, credit, small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) support and waste management.
Building viable businesses
Ms Acheampong said the initiative went beyond rewarding innovative ideas, explaining that the ultimate objective was to develop them into viable businesses.
The Chief Product and Services Officer of Mobile Money FinTech Limited said participants had received coaching and mentorship from partners across the financial services ecosystem to strengthen their ideas and improve their chances of success.
She added that the winners would still be supported with technical guidance, business knowledge and opportunities to test their solutions with potential customers.
Addressing language barriers
Explaining the motivation behind the innovation, a member of the Gbe La team, Delali Hannah Vordoagu, said the idea was inspired by the difficulties a relative experienced when using digital financial services.
The student said the relative struggled to carry out transactions independently and frequently depended on other people for assistance, a situation which had exposed her to fraud.
The experience prompted the team to develop a solution that would make financial transactions more accessible through voice-based interactions in multiple languages.
Ms Vordoagu said the team hoped to further refine the solution ahead of the national grand finale to make it more useful to a wider segment of the population.
