Teenager wins Nomba Hackathon with AI tool for SMEs

Abdullah Ajala, a 17-year-old Nigerian developer, has claimed the top prize at the Nomba x DevCareer Hackathon with his innovative artificial intelligence-powered tool, PayWise. Ajala outshone more than 1,000 participants to win the $4,000 grand prize for his solution designed to assist small business owners in managing credit sales.

PayWise is an AI assistant seamlessly integrated into WhatsApp. It empowers traders and small business operators to meticulously track debts by utilizing voice notes in their preferred languages. The tool allows business owners to record customer debts through spoken messages. Subsequently, the system logs this information, monitors outstanding balances, dispatches payment reminders, and updates records upon settlement.

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The aim was never to just build something to demo. The aim was to ship something live, something customers can actually use and enjoy, and maybe something that becomes the foundation of a business for the developers themselves.

The five-week hackathon, which included a main build challenge from June 30 to July 7, provided developers access to Nomba’s comprehensive API stack. Participants competed in build and infrastructure tracks, with a strong emphasis on creating functional solutions for actual customers rather than theoretical prototypes. Jafer Shariff, vice-president of product at Nomba, stressed the competition's goal: "The aim was to ship something live, something customers can actually use and enjoy, and maybe something that becomes the foundation of a business for the developers themselves."

Ajala's inspiration for PayWise stemmed from observing how local small business owners managed credit sales using traditional notebooks. His winning solution was recognized for its practical application and potential to significantly streamline debt management for informal businesses. Other winners included Glasspot, a money-pooling platform inspired by Nigerian savings practices, which secured second place with a $1,500 prize, and Paye, a payment routing platform for developers, which took third place.

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PayWise is an AI assistant integrated into WhatsApp that enables traders and small business operators to track debts using voice notes in their preferred languages.