Top software developers, most of them based in Rwanda, will today (Sunday) pitch their mobile money solutions, culminating into the closure of the fourth edition of GSMA Mobile Money Hackathon. The hackathon is a two-day coding challenge organised by GSMA, a global association of telecom companies. This year, the association partnered with local telecommunication companies Airtel-Tigo and MTN Rwanda as well as Mahindra Comviva to enable developers to use their platforms to build and test solutions. At the Impact Hub, a group of over 30 competitors from the financial industry have been collaborating since Saturday, and the top teams will pitch their proposed mobile money solutions to attract the attention of telecoms. Arthur Rutagengwa, the head of mobile money at MTN Rwanda told the press on Friday that outstanding and viable solutions could be scaled through any interested telecom firm. “This challenge is not just a competition. We want to continue building the industry through enabling more innovations. This particular hackathon’s viable solutions could be scaled and perhaps serve a big purpose,” he said. With the evolution of mobile money in Africa and Rwanda in particular, there are a number of possibilities that the sector presents, and that there is need to tap them to deepen the sector. “Previously, financial inclusion meant sending and receiving money only. But today we are seeing more opportunities within the mobile money industry,” Rutagengwa said, highlighting the possibilities to enable merchants payments, among other avenues. Mobile money industry has been growing fast. In Rwanda, there are currently 10.1 million active mobile money subscribers, as of the first quarter of 2018. Statistics also show that as of March this year, the number of mobile money transactions stood at Rwf84.23 million while the value of those mobile money transactions were Rwf692.5 billion. For Moses Abindabizemu, the marketing director at Airtel, the hackathon is timely and hopes are high that programmers could work to understand and address challenges that the mobile money sector faces. “What we think is that this hackathon will help developers understand the landscape of mobile money in Rwanda and as such design solutions that address challenges and that can enable the growth of the industry,” he noted. While the adoption of mobile money has been fast in Rwanda, Abindabizemu believes that there is still room for improvement, which he said that mobile network operators have a critical role to play. “Today, there are few people who pay for services using mobile money. We would like to understand the challenges and it is only through collaborating with programmers that we can easily get to understand,” he said. For the past two years, GSMA has been convening several programmers and task them to get together and come up with solutions that address certain challenges and problems within the telecom industry. This year’s hackathon happens ahead of the GSMA Mobile 360 Africa Series expected to take place from Tuesday to Thursday this week. Mobile Money Leadership Forum will feature as a sideline event. Previous hackathon series have taken place in Latin America, Asia and in Tanzania. According to the organisers, these series have enabled the raising of awareness and increased the demand as acceleration of mobile money. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
