Three teams from Ashesi were finalists in the Stanbic Money Challenge App competition. The first of its kind by the Stanbic Bank, Ghana, the competition was opened to developers across the country to create applications to help users better understand how to manage their money and achieve their financial goals.
“We want to make it possible for Ghanaians to have more complete lives using technology,” said Mawuko Afadzinu, Head of Marketing and Communications at Stanbic Bank. “We have created the opportunity for the best brains in Ghana to come together and apply their creativity to challenges and issues in the educative and financial knowledge space.”
Of the twenty-five submissions that were made for the competition, the student teams from Ashesi placed 3rd, 4th and 7th respectively. For the challenge, teams had to build applications that addressed financial literacy, financial education, and personal finance management. The team, Stanbic Saver, which placed third included Carol Armah ’19, Jean Quarcoopome ’19 and Alex Adu ’18. Other participants included Aminu Abdul Manaf of the University of Health and Allied Sciences whose application, a fusion of several mini apps came in first place. Foster Awintiti Akugri and Norris Boateng of the Sikapong App team came in second position.
[Screenshot of the Stanbic Saver app]
Members of the other teams included Kwabena Bamfo ’17, Jeffrey Takyi-Yeboah ’17, Joseph Junior Nsiah ’17, Ernest Kufuor Jr. ’17 and Ryan Yoofi Moujaled ‘17. All the finalists were awarded cash prizes.
[Members of the two other teams from Ashesi]
“We focused on financial savings and literacy partly because it was the problem Stannic Bank wanted to solve among the youth,” said Carol Armah ’19, “Also, through research, we realized that most people are not financially independent not because of how much they earn but because of how they spend their money, without being able to track expenses. On the other hand many people do not understand the terms used in the financial world and so we included financial literacy functionality in the application so that they understand the investment packages and move from simply saving to investing.”