Ashesi alum, Kobla Setriakor Nyomi ‘11, was named winner of the 2013 MTN Ghana Apps Challenge at a ceremony in Accra last weekend. Kobla’s app, a digital rendition of the popular Ghanaian game, Oware, was selected after a rigorous vetting process. 
As part of his prize package, Kobla receives GHs10,000, a smartphone, and a paid trip to the Mobile Apps World Conference in San Francisco. Kobla will also earn the opportunity to work with a team from the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology to deploy his app across multiple mobile platforms.
The MTN Apps Challenge, an initiative of telecoms giant, MTN Ghana, seeks to generate relevant local application for subscribers and also create another opportunity for MTN to engage local developers to provide unique, relevant and user friendly apps that will be of importance to local users in Ghana and Africa as a whole. The competition received submissions from alums and students from the University of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology (KNUST), and Valley View University, among other institutions. Kobla was the only alum from Ashesi to apply.
According to a congratulatory message from MTN Ghana's Facebook page, "Setriakor’s app placed him head above shoulders of his competitors who followed closely behind with brilliant applications of their own." Wahid Farhat from KNUST, and Nwobodo Festus Emeka came in second and third respectively.
“We are impressed with the kind of applications we received during the period,” said CEO of MTN, Mr. Serame Taukobeng. “A total of 55 Apps were received from individual and group developers. The Apps received covered various subject matter including games, entertainment, cooking, health, education, sports and social media.”
Oware is from a family of African board games known as the Mancala games, which all have basic count-and-capture rules of play. In the past, these games served as a method of instilling and sharpening arithmetic skills. This, Kobla believes, is what makes Oware so important.
The inspiration for his project came from a much earlier digital rendition of the game that he came across when he was younger. It was the first time he had seen one. “I remember, that even as a child, I was disappointed to learn that not only was the game not created by Africans (it was created by two French brothers), but the interface was also not impressive.” Today, that rendition of the game is the closest to the Ghanaian version that Kobla has ever seen. He finds this unacceptable.
“This game may be played in many parts of the world, but it is indigenously African. If anyone is going to present this game in its best possible form, it is we who must do it. It is our responsibility.”
“My aim is not to simply produce another digital rendition of this game, but to recreate the entire Oware experience as I know it. If anyone picks up a smart phone or tablet to play Oware 3D, everything must feel right—from the moving hands, to the bouncing pebbles in the game.”
(Reference: The Ghana News Agency)