Speaking at the ceremony, Chief Digital Officer at MTN Ghana, Dario Bianchi,  said that the aim of the ceremony was to empower startups in the country in order to contribute to its socioeconomic development.

He said that there were over forty (40) tech startups on the MTN Ayoba platform, and competitions like this taught startups how to use Chenosis (MTN’s Application Programmable Interface APIs) and MTN mobile money (MoMo) to collect and receive payments, as well as how to build microapps to be placed on MTN Ayoba.

He disclosed that the competition began in 2021 with the Ayoba Hackathon, followed by the MTN Ayoba Accelerator in 2022, and subsequently the 2023 MTN Platforms Accelerator, which offered training for the startups on how to use the APIs with two (2) weeks to develop live microapps on the platforms.

Komla Asaase, Team Lead at Node 8, won the overall Tech Hub Award. He took home GHC50,000, souvenirs, and a lifetime mentorship from MTN Ghana. Two (2) award categories, namely, Best MoMo Solution and Best Chenosis Solution, were won by Own A Radio, led by Shaibu Zacharyya, a software developer who took home GHC20,000 and GHC40,000 for both categories, respectively.

The final award category, Experts Choice Award, was won by Waste Man, a waste management startup service supported by Node 8, and they took home GHC20,000.

Ms. Winnie Dzidonu, Manager of Digital Platforms at MTN Ghana, said that the competition aimed to ensure that the youth drove the future with digital activities by pushing local businesses to leverage MTN Ayoba as a platform to promote growth.

MTN Ayoba is an app that offers free instant messaging, an in-app music player, free games, news, fashion, and entertainment, among others, and is available to MTN customers and non-customers.