The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL) has announced top innovations from East and West Africa, for the semi-final round of its Innovating Justice Challenge 2017.
Among the semi-finalists are Nigeria’s LegitCar, a car theft-deterrent system that helps users find their cars and LawPadi, a legal platform that bridges the access to justice gap.
Last month, HiiL announced semi-finalists from Southern Africa, stating that the challenge saw a record of over 600 innovations submitted from 65 different countries.
The semi-finalists will now attend and pitch at local Boostcamps in their region, after which the HiiL Justice Accelerator team will select up to 10 innovations to pitch at the final, the Innovating Justice Forum 2017, that will take place on the 7th of December.
The 10 selected finalists will get a zero-equity grant of up to €20 000 and entry into a six-month business development programme at the Hiil Justice Accelerator, which is aimed at assisting startups and innovators with innovative solutions to justice and legal problems.
Check out the list of semi-finalists below:
Kampala boostcamp:
- Safe Futures (Uganda) – A voice-based mobile app to monitor victims of (forced) migration and trafficking
- Wogana! (Uganda) – An sms service for victims of GBV
- Evidence and Methods Lab (Uganda) – Creating smart infographics of complex justice problems to promote accountability
- Muslim Centre for Justice e-Law App (Uganda) – A legal sms service for Muslim minorities and users of the Qhuadi court
- The Land Title Search App (Uganda) – A land title verification application
- Pilot Public Defender Project (Uganda) – Empowering plea bargaining in criminal procedures
- E-Migrate – An easy and safe travel agency for migrants and refugees
- Protection of land rights under customary land tenure (Uganda) – Solving land disputes by tree planting on customary land borders
- Citizens Reporting for Justice (Uganda) – Reporting employment or crime issues over sms
- West Nile Mediation Centre (Uganda) – Mediation of land and family disputes in Northern Uganda
Accra boostcamp:
- LegitCar (Nigeria) – A car theft-deterrent system to help find your car and make it difficult to resell stolen vehicles
- Lawpadi – Pocket Lawyer (Nigeria) – An online legal platform to bridge the access to justice gap by bringing legal information and services closer to Nigerians (and Africans).
- BenBen (Ghana) – provides fast, easy access to Blockchain secured land transactions for the government, banks, and individuals
- Legalsoba (Mali) – An online legal services platform in the OHADA area
- VERTEX LEGAL PROTECTION (Ghana) – We provide equitable, fast and easy access to legal counselling and representation which is affordable through a pre-paid legal protection plan
- INDenture (Ghana) – A land records platform that compares crowdsourced land documents with antecedents to find encumbrances and performs initial checks on land ownership.
- Keep Calm- The Chief Mediates (Ghana)- Equipping local leaders with basic legal skills to mediate over small claims, and by so doing reduce the workload on the courts
- Cabinet Gaiba (Senegal) – A legal tech established in the OHADA area offering legal services to individuals and institutions
Nairobi boostcamp:
- M-Haki (Kenya) – An sms portal for free, quick and easy legal aid
- Smart Shamba (Kenya) – A USSD and smartphone application to verify land ownership
- Tambua (Kenya) – Protecting consumer rights through a product verification application
- Usalama (Kenya) – Connecting gender based violence victims to service providers easily
- MSheria (Kenya) – A bail application for petty offenders
- Mullika Hongo (Kenya) – SMS service for corruption and bribe incidents
- Gerayo (Rwanda) – Real time crime reporting portal in Rwanda
- SocialWell (Rwanda) – An easy to use gender based violence case management system for service providers
The Hague boostcamp:
- LexIQ (the Netherlands) – LexIQ enables artificial intelligence to be made possible for the entire legal industry
- Kids Reunited (Stichting io.) (the Netherlands) – Bringing unaccompanied minors (refugees) back to their relatives with the use of a webapp and Blockchain technology
- FastPortal (the Netherlands) – Online service & self-service. Automate, save and update clients by working together from visual files
- Legalista B.V. (the Netherlands) – Platform where you can quickly find a good lawyer, notary or mediator near you as a consumer
- JustFund (the Netherlands) – an Online platform that connects investors with plaintiffs – uses tech to predict investible lawsuits and blockchain to manage payment processes. Aims to improve access to justice for plaintiffs who cannot afford to do so themselves, by mitigating their costs and risks
- Mag ontslag (the Netherlands) – Mag ontslag? offers online tools, providing employees with online customized answers, defenses, and calculations about possible dismissals, transition allowances, temporal or long-term employment contracts, etc.
- Ithaca (UK) – Ithaca connects refugees, and migrants with lawyers virtually in order to assist and support those when they are at their most vulnerable
- LGALN (Lebanon) – LGALN is a website and mobile app linking users to lawyers and users to a huge database of Questions and Answers by using artificial intelligence
- Justfix (USA) – We empower tenants in neglectful housing situations with tools to better organize, connect with advocates, and take legal actions
- E-Municipalité (Tunisia) – An application that allows citizens to access information regarding municipal activities and regulations, plus a discussion forum
Johannesburg boostcamp:
- Environmental Justice Reporting App (Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association) (Zimbabwe) – The know, monitor and report mobile app on environmental rights in Zimbabwe
- Mobile Corruption Reporting App (Transparency International: Zimbabwe) (Zimbabwe) – A mobile application which will provide citizens especially the youth with a platform to report cases of corruption anonymously
- Road Rules (Zimbabwe) – A mobile app that is revolutionizing the way people acquire driver’s licenses and help motorists fight traffic police corruption in Zimbabwe
- Lady Liberty (South Africa) – A ‘1st in South Africa’ mobile legal office, taking law to marginalised women by traveling to poor remote areas & virtually by using mobile technology
- NuvaLaw SME (South Africa) – NuvaLaw is a LegalTech startup that resolves claims and disputes by processing legal information efficiently
- Comic Contracts (South Africa) – Creating legally binding visual contracts for vulnerable people to reduce contract inequality, improve understanding and align mutual expectations
- MoLLy (South Africa) – MoLLy is mobile artificial intelligence, which aggregates and organises existing legal knowledge onto devices and; serves as a legal library/resource