Youngsters’ social networking site builds users’ skills and professions

Johnson Kamau, a business student at the University of Nairobi (UoN), was in search of an alternative income as he studied. He settled on horticulture and went in search of an investor to help him get his new venture off the ground.

The avid social media user stumbled upon VoSpine, a local Internet based networking platform.

VoSpine, created by Sidney Rema and Phelix Juma — both 22 years old— is a social media platform similar to Facebook with an added filter that allows users to pick out content in line with their interests.

If a person’s interests are for instance in business and photography, information about fashion and health will feature nowhere in their feeds.

Danstan Wanyonyi, 23, the VoSpine marketing director, is scheduled to attend the One Young World Summit in Ottawa, Canada, in September, an opportunity he learnt about through VoSpine.

“My interests are in business startups and this is how I learnt of the global forum, registered for it and got selected to be among participants,” said Mr Wanyonyi, an Electrical and Engineering student at UoN.

At the annual summit, mentors empower young leaders aged between 18 and 30 to develop solutions to the world’s most pressing issues. Mr Wanyonyi will have the privilege of being mentored by billionaire Richard Branson, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and former US president Bill Clinton, among others.

VoSpine co-founders Rema and Juma say that the main idea behind the platform is to revolutionalise how people interact online.

The co-founders believe that the platform, created for similar minded individuals with common interests to interact across the world, will add value to the time spent on social media.

Meaningful interaction

Creation of VoSpine was motivated by results of a study by US-based think tank PewResearch Centre which showed 76 per cent of Internet users were shying away from social platforms due to the prevalence of irrelevant content.

“This narrowing down ensures that a user has more meaningful interaction and benefits from the information shared online,” said Mr Rema, a Medicine and Surgery student at UoN.

Much like other social media sites, there are no restrictions to sign up. However, users must have a clear idea of what subjects are of interest to them. Upon joining, a user is asked to specify interests — which are referred to as channels on the platform. They include Photography, Technology, Business, Health, Fashion, Christianity and Lifestyle, among others.

These categories can be further narrowed down, for instance a user with interest in business can filter down to startups, economy and real estate.

Aside from getting feeds on relevant areas the platform, which connects people just like Facebook, allows users to connect with experts and mentors in their areas of interest.

Users can also create threads through which other users with similar interests can like, comment on and post links to bigger, related subjects.

This allows users to be in the know of trending topics in their area of interest and get tips too.

The platform started operating in October 2015 and has to date registered over 21,000 users across its various channels.

Of these, 7,000 are daily users. This, according to the founders, is a clear indication of the thirst for a platform such as VoSpine.

The data, which is pooled in a central server, can be accessed by users both on the webpage and on the mobile app. Accorsing to Mr Rema; “averagely, in a day there are over 3,000 users on the app which has a total user base of about 4,500. The rest access using the website.” The Android app can be downloaded from Google Play Store. The initial plan was to restrict the platform to students but over time it has been opened up to include people from all walks of life.

READ: Young innovators showcase tech, entrepreneurial talent

“Those who have signed up can follow a thread of activities as well as inbox whoever they want for private conversations,” said Mr Juma.

The name VoSpine pays homage to the medical career path of one of the co-founders as it combines two words; voice and spine.

The voice being from the instant audience that users get upon signing up and the spine is reminiscent of their strengthened backbone of information.

Promotion posts
The platform generates revenue through running advertisements in the form of promotion posts, events and opportunities.

Additionally, news sites subscribe periodically to have their content targeted to a particular audience.

VoSpine is run by a team of 14 young entrepreneurs, all UoN students, each with diverse knowledge in different sectors of the economy.

Over 70 per cent of the team has had formal experience in employment with Equity Group under the Equity Leaders Programme (ELP) after being ranked among top performers nationally in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE).

The team saved itself overhead costs when it won a slot in the C4D Incubation Lab at UoN after emerging among the five best tech startups in the institution.

At the C4D Incubation Lab young innovators are mentored on their projects and provided with resources to take their enterprises to the next level.

VoSpine is not the first thing that these innovators tried their hands on. It is actually the fourth.

“Our initial startups did not work out since we were still learning and had not at the time appreciated the power of teamwork, but the team behind VoSpine is incredible,” said Mr Rema, adding that focus now is on offering African solutions for African problems.