By Laju Iren

Experts say it takes about $10,000 to build an app. Little wonder many schools across the country don’t bother. But with the activities that come with running a school and the many stakeholders involved, it only makes sense that schools have access to an app that brings all these elements together. Enter, VeriCampus, a mobile solution for schools aimed at improving the on-campus and off-campus experience of all its stakeholders through their mobile devices. With VeriCampus, schools can have their own mobile app to deliver personalized services to all stakeholder communities at an affordable cost.

Prior to this, I’ve run one of Nigeria’s notable software development and digital agencies, Grappleline, says twenty-something year old founder, Mr. Seun Owolabi. “We’ve served over 100 companies across multiple industries – some being Stanbic IBTC, Sterling Bank, MTN, UBA, Tecno Mobile, Samsung Nigeria and Indomie.”

Despite already having a successful business, Owolabi was restless about a project he had done a few years ago as a Covenant University undergraduate. His words: “In 2012, for my final year research project, I built an app for my university to solve a few problems I faced as a student – such as communication gaps between students and teachers, irregular and constantly-changing calendars – and also built in a few additional features. It turned out that a lot of students and staff faced similar problems, my school loved the app, and it was selected as the best in my department.  It also turned out to be the first custom mobile app built for any school in West Africa.”

Flash forward a few years later, he  joined hands with friends Tega Iortim  and Leye Sinmi-Adetona  to start work on VeriCampus in 2014.  VeriCampus works on any mobile device  That way, no stakeholder is left out. It’s also modular, meaning that schools can mix and match features based on their specific needs. Next, in addition to the available useful tools and features .

With VeriCampus, schools can implement locally-relevant and institution-specific features. For example, through an intelligent crowd-sourcing process, students can find out which ATMs on campus are dispensing cash per time. Students can also access internships, scholarships and mentorship opportunities.

Starting up has not been without its challenges, electricity being the biggest of them all. ” The moment this is sorted out, the foundation would be laid for anything else businesses need to thrive. There’s only an extent to which startups can grow and compete on a global scale when they are busy fighting irrelevant battles.”

But considering the attention it has garnered, this startup seems to have no  qualms competing on the global scale. The company recently got funding from DraperDarkFlow and  got selected as one of Africa’s 100 ‘hottest’ startups (out of about 1,500 startups) to be represented at the Annual SpeedUpAfrica Bootcamp supported by Google, Singularity University, 500 Startups and F6S.

At the Bootcamp, Owolabi was handpicked as one of the 5 tech-preneurs to pitch their start-ups directly to Tim Draper, founder of Draper University, SiliconValley’s top entrepreneurship program for building founders and startup entrepreneurs.

Confident of Nigeria’s tech-o-system, he shares some ideas on how things could be better. He said: ” Tech Startups need to put more thought and more work into creating strong value propositions and flexible revenue models.”