September 16, 2010 – A Kenyan technology company has won the Nokia Innovation Challenge Award – beating companies from 54 different countries to emerge the best – effectively banking $1m (or roughly Sh80 Million).
The award, which is an investment in Virtual City was given to Managing Director, John Waibochi at the Nokia Developer Summit in London, UK by the new Nokia CEO Stephen Elop.
Waibochi has attributed the success to dedicated service borne of innovation. He successfully demonstrated to the panel how to fully utilize the potential that a mobile phone has in adding value to the user.
“We have developed an application that enables distributors and retailers to sell in the market using the Nokia mobile phones for their sales, deliveries and taking orders and we have gone further to help them be able to collect their cash,” he said.
Nokia called on innovators from around the world to create a mobile product or service to improve the lives of people in developing nations and compete for the chance to win venture capital investment of $1 million.
Virtual City developed a solution dubbed Mobile Distributor – aimed at streamlining the supply chain for distributors and retailers of Fast Moving Consumer Goods in emerging markets.
It was designed to improve the distribution efficiencies for SMEs in the fast moving consumer goods market. The solution aims to boost profitability of SMEs by increasing the number of transactions as well as improving inventory management, the accuracy of records and reporting from the field.
Developers were required to submit the best idea for a new mobile product or solution designed to improve the lives of people in the developing world. 
Waibochi said that Virtual City goal is to help companies realise the need for innovative use of technology that would save them money, instill efficiency in their systems, boost productivity and as a result improve their bottom-line.
Virtual City designs Technology Solutions that enable organizations to maximize the value of their IT investment by aligning IT with their business requirements, increasing business agility, managing business risk and optimizing IT infrastructure.
From a Nokia Challenge perspective, the award provides a solution that will bring value to a large number of beneficiaries comprising thousands of small and micro enterprises in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Market through the smart application of mobile