Lesotho’s pocket power app wins in Dubai

ROMA – This app helps raise money online for students who are admitted for post-graduate studies in any university.

It was developed by Thato Rammoko, a National University of Lesotho (NUL) graduate in Computer Science.

This app, which captured tech minds from all over the world in Dubai is called Pocket Power, www.pocketpower.co.ls.

It was among the top 100 tech solutions, beating hundreds of other competitors from all over the world, to make it to Dubai last week.
Rammoko’s work is the first tech project from Lesotho to make it to the top 100 at the Dubai Prototypes for Humanity Expo.

The event was organised by Dubai International Finance Centre (DIFC).

To make a formidable team, Rammoko teamed with joined by Takatso Kumi – one of the leaders of the NUL Innovation Hub.

Kumi is an author and a Family Leadership and Generational Wealth Management Coach who represented the Hub at the event.

What was Rammoko’s idea?

He wanted to improve access to scholarships for students who want to pursue their post-graduate studies abroad.

That is a challenge. The National Manpower Development Secretariat (NDMS) sponsors a handful of such students but that is not enough.

Sometimes it sponsors courses that do not resonate with applicants. Applying for university and getting admission abroad is quite easy.

Getting a scholarship is a mountain to climb since competition is very tight. If one is self-sponsored, currency differences can be huge, making it expensive to try.

Many of us have gone through the experience. For instance, how many of us got admitted for post-graduate studies only to find it impossible to move forward because there was no money?

Rammoko had a personal experience.

“I got admitted to the University of Essex to study Masters in Financial Technology,” he said.

“I applied for a Chevening Scholarship and I got rejected.”

He then told the university he would wait until the following year when he had sorted his finances out. He tried applying again for the same scholarship and he got rejected once more.
Competition was really tight there.

How could he finance his studies if he didn’t have a scholarship? How about from his own pocket? Eureka! That’s when the idea of Pocket Power came to be.

It would act as a crowd-funding project to encourage financing post-graduate education from our pockets when scholarship fails.

“It will be done through encouraging local and international companies to strengthen their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) because of the role they can play in giving back to the community,” he said.

Small businesses and individuals who can donate their funds to this initiative can also participate through their philanthropic activities.

Any nation that wants to escalate its rate of development like Dubai would first invest in the education of its citizens.

Pocket Power is here to do exactly that. The project is live albeit in beta stage. The platform has three students currently raising funds.

You can visit www.pocketpower.co.ls and give as little as M100 to one or more students and become a dream maker today.

All the donations are kept in a secure account and paid directly to the academic institutions to protect donors from scammers and chancers.

Donors can also give directly to the pool of funds that will be used to top up active campaigns that need a boost.

So far Pocket Power has collected over M60 000 from over 100 donors from countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Malta, South Africa and more.

Considering its potential, the project caught the attention of the organisers of Prototypes for Humanity Competition in Dubai.

Dubai is one of the fastest growing seven states of the United Arab Emirates as a global research and innovation centre.

You see this in its spectacular infrastructural designs of the future, unbelievable booming economy, and a global tourist attraction destination place.

How Dubai developed its economy in about two decades is a story for another day.

Our focus now is: What is Prototypes for Humanity Expo and how can you participate in it next year?

If you are a graduate passionate about addressing critical challenges for humanity to advance ideas for positive, social and environmental impact, this could be your turn too.

Your task is simply to apply next year.

The programme, which is done in partnership with Dubai International Finance Centre, brings together trailblazing ideas, projects, and technologies, addressing critical challenges affecting us all, and then awards the best four prototypes covering the four themes at US$25 000 (about M450 000) each that are convened to support the development of real-world solutions for a better world.

It is said to have evolved from the originally design-centric Global Grad Show exhibition.

The themes for this year, although they may change next time, were: Health, Society, Environment and Corporate Solutions.

Own Correspondent