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Township spaza coupon startup wins R1million HackJozi grand prize

After months of intense training, mentoring and developing ideas, products and services, Desmond Mongue was crowned the grand prize winner of the HackJozi Challenge last night, walking away with a cool R1 million for his startup.

Mongue’s moWallet startup is behind the PopApp Deals a USSD service that provides township and rural village residents with coupons to use at their nearest “spaza” (tuckshop) to purchase a particular brand product.

“With PopApp Deals, our aim is to disrupt innovate and change the delivery and distribution channels of discounts, incentives, vouchers, food parcels and social products,” Mongue said.

“It’s feels great to have won because I wasn’t expecting to get this far in the competition,” Mongue told htxt.africa after receiving the award. “Winning this prize is a key milestone that will enable moWallet to create a distribution network across spaza shops in townships and rural areas. We’re currently running a pilot in Soweto and we’ll expand on that, by January next year we expect to have targeted over 1 000 spazas having delivered the first official retail promotion to them.”

Desmond Mongue receives his prize from mayor Tau
Desmond Mongue receives his prize from Joburg mayor Parks Tau.

“The real prize isn’t only the R1 million, it’s the impact these ideas and startups will have on their communities,” Professor Barry Dwolatzky from the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE) said at the awards ceremony which was held at the Wits University Origins Centre.

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Prof Barry Dwolatzky

Online logistics management system, MoveThisStuff and Lazy Lizzard, creators of the Teachinator educational solution, were named first and second runner up respectively and each received a cash prize of R350 000.

All ten of the Hack Jozi finalists will receive continued support from the JCSE and the City of Joburg including R12 000 worth of IBM Cloud usage credits for a year, access to IBM Softlayer and the IBM Bluemix developers’ platform, membership to the Tshimologong Precinct innovation hub in Braamfontein.

“We’re also going to give the startups access to Professor Dwolatzky and the Hack Jozi excutives’ network and we’ll put the weight of the city and Wits behind each one,” said Zolani Matebese, head of broadband at the City of Joburg.

“HackJozi is part of the plan to thousands of digital entrepreneurs from the townships, city and suburbs arising and tapping into new markets,” executive mayor of the city, Parks Tau said in his keynote address during the evening.

Executive mayor of the City of Jo'burg, Parks Tau
Executive mayor of the City of Joburg, Parks Tau.

“We’ve seen many innovative, adaptive solutions here and we hope to attract more innovative entrepreneurs and business people that will help solve problems in the city’s communities.”

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