As the pursuit for jobs and promotions soars, many people turn to dubious ways of making their certificates a winner. However, M-verified, a mobile web and android application for verifying the legitimacy of documents such as log books, certificates, bank statements, permits, driving licences and title deeds, tries to demystify this.
Samuel Kimani, a beneficiary of Inoorero University’s (IU) scholarship programme, is the brain behind this innovation. But what prompted him to such an innovation?
“From the recent events like the one in Syokimau where many houses were demolished, logbook forgery whereby people buy vehicles which have been stolen or from guys who pose as the owners but they are not, cases of job applicants forging their academic certificates, costs employers a lot of money and time to verify the certificates of the applicants with the relevant institutions.
This impelled me to develop M-Verified which will authenticate the validity of KRA PIN certificates, KRA tax compliance certificates, logbooks, title deeds and university degrees,” adding that the services are been offered manually and hence the application has been well received since it gives instant results 24/7.
A jovial Kimani pitched the application at the Pivot East regional mobile apps competition finals held at Ole Sereni Hotel on 5th and 6th June and is eyeing a jackpot, if it gets a nod from the judges.
“I am hoping that I will emerge as the overall winner of this competition and walk away with the 10,000USD,” adds Kimani exuding confidence.
M-Verified follows a continuum of innovations under his belt including M-Shule which is currently being used within the University to aid in running the university activities.
“M-Shule enables students in the university register for a new semester, check their semester results, check their fees status, check the daily lessons timetable and get notices of importance,” says Kimani who has also designed a number of websites like seedsomalia.org, vitaburental.com, 3ginnovators.com, mobilechoice.com, 254connect.com, mobilab.co.ke among many others that have received a lot of popularity.
After displaying keen interest in programming while pursuing a diploma in IT at IU, Mr. Elkana Ochieng, a lecturer at the school of ICT started free training on programming where he selected some of the capable students of the university and started training them on programming and entrepreneurship specifically java for desktop applications and j2me for mobile application.
“It is from this training that the programmer and the innovator in me came out,” says Kimani, who continued interacting with other lecturers like Eng. Ambrose Njeru and his attachment supervisor Mr. Steve Mutinda at Shimba mobile technology who further honed his skills in programming and developing mobile applications.
With the introduction of the department of Research and Innovation in the university which acts as a pool to nurture talents by coordinating the students to come up with ideas which will provide solutions to problems facing our society, Kimani hopes to make the best out of it by mentoring those with a knack for innovation.
