I met Julie Chrysler a couple of years ago because of work. We were colleagues at work. Most of all we are just on the same page with our passion about innovation, collaboration, co-creation. We love connecting the dots to bring people together for a greater impact.
Julie is currently on the road traveling in Africa. She keeps telling me about awesome entrepreneurs. One of them is William – they met in Nairobi end of September. His startup is promoting sports talent at grassroots level.
It is so just wow for me when I hear that young people create services that encompass a giving back to the community element from the start.
I got some insights into how the story of William Wanyama started and what he is offering with his startup.
1. What are you doing?
UmpireRef is a web and mobile application addressing documentation challenges affecting amateur sports. This is achieved by assisting referees in capturing match data in real-time through a mobile app, with the information then being synced to other users such as coaches, spectators and event organizers using a web based interface. Therefore, we reduce the impact of poor documentation practices which are more prominent in developing regions, where sports events are either not recorded or are logged in paper format which isn’t easily accessible.
2. Why are you doing this? What is motivating you?
It started out with my own personal experience of having won several accolades with my high school soccer team but quickly saw them diminish in value due to an inefficient documentation practice. In the world of sport there are more amateur players than professionals yet documentation is often poorly done at amateur level. There is a need to address this issue and help grassroots talent in both men’s and women’s sports to more easily find opportunities, gain exposure and fulfill their potential.
3. What were the most difficult obstacles, problems you encountered on the way?
Our growth has been impacted by a lack of resources. Largely in the form of funding and team size.
4. How did you overcome them?
By basing our operations in the iHub community, we have been able to rely on its members and services to help us address those challenges. Freelancers in the community have contributed to our platform in various forms be it developing our application or business strategy.
5. What would you need to have more impact in the world? Can we help you with something?
We are looking for investors or anyone who believe in our mission to help us raise funds to cover our operating costs so that we can focus on achieving our goals. We also encourage more developers to contribute to our project as the code base is open source.
Thanks, William, for sharing your story.
Delivered by Techimpuls on our mission to be a space making innovative ideas visible for leaders, experts and entrepreneurs to achieve a greater impact together.
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