Nigerian app Ask The Lawyer, which allows users to interact with a vast database of legal content, has won the DevCon Alpha competition organised by Microsoft in conjunction with Mobile Monday Nigeria, Nokia and Verve.
The Ask The Lawyer team – led by Oladipo Olasemo – won NGN750,000 (US$4,600) and US$300,000 marketing support from Nokia after emerging the winner ahead of nine other apps in the competition in which developers created locally relevant, visually appealing and commercially viable apps on either Windows 8 Mobile or Windows Phone platforms.
The app provides access to content records of court judgments, legislation, rules of court and case summaries, while also allowing users to find a lawyer and read articles and newsletters on topics of interest.
Oyeshina Oyetosho, developer and evangelism lead at Microsoft Nigeria, said: “We decided to participate in the project because we noticed there is a gap in the technology ecosystem. It is mainly to create a platform to close the gap. We are giving trainings, offering free access in as many ways as we can to enable developers create applications that are usable, scalable, visually appealing, locally relevant and more importantly, challenge them to monetise their creativity which we trust will make them employers of labour. This way, they can contribute their quota to the growth of the Nigerian economy.”
Tomi Davies, chairman of Mobile Monday Nigeria, said: “Our vision is to see Nigeria become a key player in the technology space and what better way to achieve this than by getting our youth to create apps on the Windows platform that will compete with those of their foreign counterparts. With DevCon Alpha, we have seen that we can begin the development of a new generation of Nigerians that will challenge the domination of foreign players in the Nigerian software market.”