Get To Know TooKnow.com, the Local Search Engine for Ghanaian Listings

It’s commonplace to head to one of these e-commerce sites to search for an item. Very often, before one makes a purchase online, you’d check various websites so you don’t miss out on any better deals. It comes in handy when you can find all in one place. In a related experiment, I once tried to curate a list of Ghanaian listings site, I lost!

TooKnow.com comes to solve all that. It’s a localised search engine which curates listings from different listings and classified websites in Ghana. It categorises the listings so as to make it easy to sort and find what you are looking for. It makes use of one of Google’s previous (tried and tested) search results page’s interface to categorise the listings.

The clean interface presents the use with an option to search specifically under one of the four common listing categories mainly job, realty, shopping, and autos. Tooknow.com is a product of Encodev Labs, the brain behind MPower Payments, one of the leading payment solutions in Ghana. Encodev Labs is fast becoming one of Ghana’s most trusted software companies in this new age of web and mobile apps.

In Ghanaian parlance, “too know(n)” is simply a know-all. This is probably to suggest that tooknow.com knows where all the listings are based. Is this going to be the new phase of e-commerce in Ghana? Will the new thing be having search engines for online listings just as e-commerce sites flooded the market? Share your thoughts.

What an amazing run!

Amazing first year! Whew. What a run! We sit here today looking back at how big we have grown in such a short time. But the real credit goes to YOU. Yes you our treasured +DevCongress member. You gave life to our dreams and made it all worthwhile. So before we say thank you we would like to have a quick retrospective look that the year 2013.

In August, you came out on a limb of faith to see what this +DevCongress noise was all about. We met at MEST and delved in to new technologies that can drive our developer space in Ghana and Africa, and a very fruitful panel discussion around electronic payment in Ghana. We discussed among other things how we can drive the space and make it more effective. Not only were you guys full of wonderful ideas but you also contributed massively towards the open source projects. Special gratitude to  all who have contributed so far. We are amazed. They are still in progress and will be launching soon. Keep fingers crossed.

Then in October you came out again for the first ever e-commerce hackathon in Ghana organized by DevCongress and the able partnership of SMSGh at +iSpace. We made ourselves proud that day by building useful projects on the SMSGh APIs as well as the MPower Payments API. Kudos to all the winners. But you know that for showing up alone you are a winner in your own right, right? Yes you are. DevCongress is about inspiring confidence and if you had the guts to show up, then we have won. 😉 Does this look familiar?

By your relentless contribution, we have one of the most vibrant tech forums in Ghana. Thank you all for sharing resources, links, ideas, and answers to questions posed to the forum. In 2014 we look forward to an even more dynamic and vibrant  forum. Ours will be the Stack Overflow of Africa. Do you promise to make it so?

Also we were humbled by the massive support we enjoyed from MEST, Blogging Ghana, SMSGh, MTN and Joy FM. These organizations did not only commit resources to the DevCongress cause but showed incredible confidence in us even before we proved ourselves. How do we say “thank you” enough?

In the coming year, we plan for greater things. Full steam innovation and crazy hacking! Put on you gear and brace yourself because it is all about disruption! We will disrupt the tech space in Ghana and that is a PROMISE! We will keep you posted.

For now we just want to say a massive thank you for your immense support and unflinching confidence in DevCongress. We are truly grateful to have you on board.

Finally, to wrap it all up what should we call a DevCongress member? If your suggestion wins, we will tell you what is in store for you. It will blow your mind away. So what should we call you?

We wish you all happy holidays and the very best in the coming year.

What Happened at Ghana’s First eCommerce Hackathon

After a successful developers conference in August this year, we set an audacious task; to organize a hackathon. From the response we received from MPower during our panel discussion at DevCongress, we decided to partner with SMSGh to come up with the DevCongress MPower Payments API Hackathon.

It was a great time having developers dedicate their time to build products on the MPower Payments API last Saturday, 5^thOctober, 2013. Don’t worry, we are aware the money was a major motivation too.

So we set off on our hackathon at about 10am at iSpace, mainly because of some logistical issues, and developers didn’t arrive on time. By the time we began, we had enough people to get the games going. For the developers who came early, there was breakfast to cater for any eventualities.

As expressed earlier, some people came in their teams, as others came to form teams at the event. The standard was at least 2 and at most 3 per team. In the end, almost all the teams which turned out were 3 in number.

For most of the developers, this was the first time they had taken a look at the API, something I wouldn’t advise prior to a hackathon. Look at it at least twice before the event. That’s not cheating!

The day began with an ideation session as the teams took time to find ideas which they can integrate MPower Payments with. Then the coding session began at about 11am.

So the developers hacked till about 3 pm when we took a break for a code chat. This code chat was meant to keep all participants abreast of what each team was up to. Since this was not an ideation competition, the focus was on building a product so discussing your idea was not a major hurdle. In the background, teams were called for interviews .

After the code chat, teams got back together, and continued hacking. Right about that time, the mixologists and the DJ had started setting up. DJ Adom also came in with lights. The mood for the party was already set!

This is not just a hackathon, it’s a party in disguise. Come join us at @iSpace, we’re waiting for you. #DCMPower @SMSGH
— DevCongress (@DevCongress) October 5, 2013

At about 6pm, teams were asked to round up their work, bringing the coding session to a close. This was followed by a reminder of the rules and criteria by which the teams would be judged. So they were: 50% for MPower integration, 30% for finishing the product, 10% for UI, and 10% for the pitch itself.

At the end of the pitches, the SpeedBanking team of First Capital Plus Bank, setup up a short presentation as the teams took their rounds at the judges’ tables. In all, the developers had put in a great deal of effort to build products in such a short time.

After all the teams had gone through to the judges’ tables, they spent a few minutes on the dance floor.

It wasn’t long after that the dancing was paused for the final declarations.

At the end of the event, Fundr Africa came first, EasyFundssecond, while Caridad took the 3^rd place. It was such a delight to see on-screen as the cash prizes were disbursed into the developers’ MPower accounts live. For bonus point, all teams were given the 2-week window to complete and deploy their products and win GHC 500 instantly. How cool is that!

After the team presentations, MPower took the floor to congratulate Alfred Rowe for his immense contribution to MPower Payments. The previous day, MPower Payments had swooped several awards in 5 categories at TopApps Award 2013, making SMSGh the App Company of the Year.

On the whole, there were not as many developers as one would expect at a hackathon. However, the general participation of the developers who were present was very encouraging.

We, the DevCongress team, are really grateful for the interest expressed by the developers. We are glad you have set out on this journey with us; we promise to deliver the best content for software developers in Ghana. #LetsDoThis

Build, Hack and Win at the DevCongress MPower Payments API Hackathon

We have great news. But first, we are glad you helped us in starting out with our first developer conference last August. Thank you!

We have come so far with you. And we’re asking you to join us on our next biggest move – we’re hacking on the MPower Payments API! As you remember, we talked a lot about mobile payment solutions in Ghana at our first DevCongress. We, together with MPower Payments, have decided to give you a chance to hack, build and win with the MPower Payments API. Awesome, isn’t it?

We have partnered with SMSGh for this hackathon, so come join us this Saturday, 5^th October at the premises of the iSpace Foundation in Osu from 8 am till your code works! We know that most developers in Ghana would like to make use of mobile payments; this is the perfect opportunity for you to finally build that outstanding product and begin to make some real good money.

This is how it works.

You come with your team of up to 3 people, or you can form a team of at most 3 people at the hackathon. No one knows it all, so we wanted to see “trio-programming” at work this time. The teams would be required to cross some checklists, and help other teams, to build points for themselves as they create their applications. Obviously, the team with the most points, and the most efficient code, wins. That simple!

There will be guys from MPower, the developers who built the API, who will help you answer the difficult questions about the API. Don’t worry; you don’t need to be a pro to join but it sure helps. Come, you may just meet your co-founder or your biggest business partner yet. Oh, and some executives will be passing through. Get those networking skills ready and your business cards. Your next job may depend on that.

Get involved, register at https://egotickets.com/events/devcongress-hackathon

Since this is the first e-commerce hackathon in Ghana, we’re making it big. It’s not just code, there’s light, camera and … #LetsDoThis

DevCongress 2013 Recap – Part 1

On the 24th of August 2013, we wrote history beginning the first of many DevCongress conferences and events at the DevCongress 2013.

DevCongress is a developer community aimed at training Ghana’s developers through conferences, code camps, hackathons, etc. We believe that if Ghanaian developers are equipped with the necessary resources they will be able to handle any challenge the tech startup scene may encounter.

This post recounts what happened on the maiden launch of the tech network that aims to be the most vibrant across Africa. I happened on the 24th of August 2013 at MEST.

I was glad to be the MC of the occasion, an honour given me by my teammates, Elorm Adjaho and Yaw Boakye.

Elorm opened the event with a warm poetic welcome address. The address touched on the fact that Africa is rising and that Ghanaian developers should rise with the opportunity that comes with Africa’s growth.

Nii Nai speaks on Go Lang

1st Tech talk: Davis Abubakr-Sadik delivered the first talk on Go lang. This was an eye-opener to Google’s programming language. And it was revealing as to the volume of products which have been built with Go. It was more revealing to find out that dl.google.com was solidly powered by Go. We also got to know that Esoko also develops some of its products in Go.

At DevCongress, one of the practices we want to encourage is bringing in experts in a particular industry to talk on opportunities for software developers in that space. For our first conference, we had Mark Davies of Esoko come in to speak to us about which agricultural ideas have been exploited already, and he also pointed out that Esoko had, and was still building extensive data on farmers which developers could take advantage of.

Next was what I can call the most revealing topic of the day, Bitcoins. It was well-delivered by Mawuli Adzoe of Saya. Apparently, most developers present were not aware of bitcoins and its increasing popularity. He took time to explain what went into mining, how many bitcoins there could be, and everything else one needed to know. Personally, I was having a good time but there were so many questions and so little time. If you were not present, you missed an opportunity to get few free bitcents to start you up. How exciting is that!

The panel (L-R, Alfred Rowe, Abdul-Majeed Rufai, Alex Adjei Bram)

Still on the issue of money, we dived into our panel discussion on Electronic and Mobile payments in Ghana. The aim of the discussion was to know the current state of affairs on the side of the providers. On the panel, we had Alfred Rowe of mPower payments, Abdul-Majeed Rufai from MTN Ghana and Alex Adjei Bram of SMSGh. Their conversations were insightful and knowledgeable especially to our course. It was more revealing to find out that SMSGh had initiated a developers’ competition relating to their APIs, and most developers present were not even aware. We also learned, unfortunately, that they outsourced job to developers outside Ghana. This, we hope will change when the DevCongress Jobs Board us up and running. In the end, developers were aware of the need to build on these existing platforms so that electronic payments processing in Ghana will be seamless.

This was followed by a long break for lunch and interaction. It was a good time to ask questions and create engaging conversations.

In the next post, I will run you through the exciting activities after lunch and the great projects the great minds gathered put together. You will be amazed.