As Kenya embraces the dawn of the digital age, young entrepreneurial IT experts are dedicating countless hours and vast resources to take advantage of this opportunity before it gains root. One of them is a 21 year old student pursuing Geospatial engineering at the University of Nairobi. Unlike his colleagues who spend their leisure time in extra-curricular activities, Denis Gachoki dedicates every ounce of his leisure time to experiment on new web development projects at his company which he founded right after completing high school 3yrs ago.
“When I started Focweb Technologies, I was a bit skeptical at first because all I had was a beat up PC which had a poor RAM and processor,” says Gachoki. “But with time I began designing websites for clients and coming up with software projects that would help in curbing youth unemployment in Kenya. One of them being the Youth Power Foundation and the web content development site www.focuspointwriters.com”
According to Gachoki, the company’s clientele grew exponentially once he started pursuing his degree. “I now had to strike a balance between my work and my studies. Moving to the Nairobi CBD doubled my clientele. So I needed a partner. Someone with exceptional IT skills that would run the company in my absence once in a while.”
It wasn’t long before Gachoki met KihatoMwangi at a recentihub workshop in the Nairobi University campus grounds. They discussed and shared ideas which had a striking similarity.
“At that moment, I knew that I had found the right partner. If we both worked together, we would propel Focweb Technologies to greater heights,” reiterates Gachoki.
With help from Kihato , Focweb Technologies has been working on numerous software development projects. “Yes indeed, we have so many software development projects we are working on right now but most of them are yet to be named. However we have two key softwares that we are focusing on right now, that’s Bungesoft and Sheriasoft.”
According to Kihato, the associate IT expert,Bungesoft is already up and running and is being used in several constituencies in Kenya. The software allows members of parliament to share and compare notes and briefs while at the same time manage constituency projects and follow up on the disbursement of the Constituency Development Funds.
“But that’s not all,” continues Kihato, “we recently came up with a software geared to make work easier for lawyers and lawfirms alike. We decided to name it Sheriasoft since we want to target not just Kenya, but also the Swahili-speaking East African market at large.”
He goes on to add that Sheriasoft handles basic tasks pertaining to lawfirms such as case handling and documentation, client billing, appointment scheduling, attorney communication and so forth.
In regards to the guiding light that has kept Focweb Technologies on the right track, Gachoki also gave credit to his father for his support.
“Indeed, my dad has been a strong foundation when it comes to influencing my projects. He has never belittled my ideas. He has always mentored me whenever I brought up a project to him. He has in fact been my major sponsor in these two latest projects that we are working on.”
When asked about the vision of Focweb Technologies, Gachoki emphasized on the need to strike a balance between ambition and reality.
“It’s so obvious that many companies today want to impact the world and that’s good. But we don’t want to be carried away by ambition that we forget to offer quality products and services. I want customers of Focweb technologies to be the promoters of this company through the testimony of what we have to offer,” he said. “Otherwise it would be pointless to create so much hype about our company only for our customers to be disappointed. That’s why we are at the testing phase of Bungesoft and Sheriasoft to ensure that once it hits the market, there won’t be any cause for alarm. And that’s what Focweb is all about. Quality products and excellent customer service that suits your needs.” said Kihato Mwangi.
So How Does SheriaSoft Work
SheriaSoft is a management systems that is built to help law firms organize their day to day activities like, contacts, calendars, cases, billing, tasks, messages and documents. It is the only software that includes an integrated client module
SheriaSoft features
- Case management – With a click of the mouse button law firms will be able to easily handle case details like case notes, case status, case files, case appointments, case messages and case tasks
- Appointment Scheduling – It enables users to schedule important days in harmony with the court rules applicable to client cases thereby eliminating error prone and time consuming manual calculations
- Document Management – Automates client files records and data in one centralized location
- Task Assignment – allows a law firms to easily link tasks to matters, assign tasks to other members of the firm and monitor the progress of the task completion
- Reporting – easily generates reports like active cases, client contacts, active clients, pending bills, paid bills among other things
- Billing – creates professional looking invoices, with the firms logo, linked to a case and associated expenses. It will either print them or export them to PDF or Exel.
- Access Anywhere – fast and secure online access on any device