COVER: Dar whiz kids build App for soccer fans

While on their internship at the Buni Hub in Dar es Salaam, six young men found themselves in the same group.

It was not by choice, they were united by fate and a common goal. Here is a story of six university students who have come up with a mobile application that caters for the needs of local football fans.

It is simple. Football fanatics would not have to buy papers, listen to the radio  or even watch local TV stations to have a sneak preview of the ongoing Vodacom Premier League, as SOKA fully meets their needs.

Musa Kalokola, 21, one of the youngsters responsible for designing the application, tells Success that they saw the need for bridging the information gap between football fans in the country.

“Tanzania is a football loving nation. Unfortunately, soccer followers don’t get around the clock updates of their fourteen local teams,” he says.

With SOKA, a football fan would be  able to gain access to fixtures, league standings, team and player profiles  from the comfort of his smart phone, says Musa, a second year student, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Science and Information and Communications Technology at Mzumbe University in Morogoro.

It took the six whiz kids some three and a half months to think of and design the application, inside the walls of the Buni Hub, in the COSTECH building along Bagamoyo Road.

Michael Kimollo, 23, a third year student at the University of Dar es Salaam, who is pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Science, Computer Engineering and Information Technology-also the eldest in the group- says all users would need is an Android smart phone with a play store application on it to download and use the new App.

While one would need to part ways with some money to buy a newspaper to get soccer updates and team profiles, accessing the SOKA application is free, according to Noel Sumbe, another member in the group from the University of Dar es Salaam.

Just the beginning

Hardly a week since the team launched their application, they are delighted to see the growing number of users accessing their App.

“ Within the first week of launching the App, we are happy to see that we have 90 users so far and still counting,” he says.

Launching the application was not difficult. All  that the six members of the group needed were six laptops, which everyone had  and their smart phones.

“We would converge at Buni for brainstorming sessions  and gave ourselves tasks to do while at home,” says Memory Mwageni, a third-year Computer Engineering student at the University of Dar es Salaam.

Mwageni adds that they had to also part ways with Sh40,000  as the cost of hosting the application.

 Before launching the application, Mathias Charles, another member of the group and first year student at Mzumbe University in Morogoro, says they had to first meet with the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) and the league organisers in order to ask for permission to host team details and players’ profiles.

“They were a bit reluctant in the beginning and thought that we were some young con men,” chuckles Mathias.

What makes it great

Describing the functions of the SOKA application, Mathias says they feed relevant content into their server which might include teams’ profiles and league fixtures and anyone with an Android smart phone would be able to access the information free of charge.

 Mathias adds that soccer followers can be updated on what is going on the fields even when they have not listened to the radio or have access to any other electronic media.

It gives you more than the scores, chips in Musa, adding that using their application, soccer fans would be able to gain access to information about games that they had missed. “It is very easy, let’s say you want to check the score of the first premier league game played in the first week of September; you just log in SOKA and from there you will know which teams played, their squads and the referee who officiated the game.”

He adds: ‘It also gives you the current standing of the league, that is; who has scored more goals, which team has been defeated the most and each team’s profile, from the year of establishment to their current status…it is very spontaneous, it is unlike going to Wikipedia where you are likely to miss details of some teams.”This writer had a sneak preview of  SOKA and was able to have a glance at Stand United’s history, a new team that has made it in this year’s Premier League.

Musa says SOKA also serves as a soccerpedia for fans to clear their doubts about certain information, as far as the Premier League is concerned.

To keep their application running, Michael says they would require anything from Sh 20million.

“Soccer has a massive fan base in Tanzania which explains why we need to employ people to update our server every now and then on what is happening on the fields,” he says.

According to Michael, what has kept the group going is the team spirit exhibited by each member, irrespective of their different learning institutions as well as distance,

“We are constantly in touch with each other even when we part company for a while, that has made our work process simple.”

Michael adds that their aim has always been to expand the application and make it grow, meaning that they hope to increase the number of users.

At the moment the team has created posters and a face book page to make their application known to the public. As Michael puts it:  “ICT is the right way to go because technology is growing at a fast pace…these things need a great deal of commitment and hard work, but everyone knows that ICT offers good employment opportunities”.