A Kenyan Blockchain Solution Among the Top at the Global Legal Hackathon 2019 Quarter Finals

The Global Legal Hackathon 2019, which saw Kenyan lawyers, developers and entrepreneurs participate, included startups that offered unique legal solutions on the blockchain.

The event, which took place at The Lawyers’ Hub, an innovation and co-working space that seeks to promote access to justice through technology, saw cross collaboration with various development schools that included Moringa School, Andela, and Microsoft 4 Afrika App Factory among others.

The event was graced by Mercy Wambua, CEO, Law Society of Kenya (LSK), Jackie Manani, Director, Legal Services, Public Service Commission of Kenya among others. Leading law schools Strathmore University, Riara University, Kabarak University, Moi University, and Nairobi University law schools were also represented.

Among the teams that came top of the hackathon included:

• Team MaliSafi – Their innovation called for the use of smart contracts on the
  blockchain to solve challenges encountered in carrying out due diligence in land
  transactions, in an efficient and verifiable way.
• Team Virtual Law – Virtual Reality Technology for legal learning to prepare law
  student to be practice ready. The given illustration was the simulation of
  courtrooms during civil and criminal cases where the students would be able to
  argue out cases with their counterparts.
• Team Wakili Companion – A live, digital legal assistant on court cause lists. This
  website and mobile application allows lawyers to view real time updates of
  proceedings in different courts, as well as an interactive forum for lawyers.
• Team Boda Justice (BJ) – An innovation that seeks to curb harassment of riders,
  through provision of legal services. The website would only include lawyers with
  5 years of experience and less, creating job opportunities for young lawyers.
• Team Wakili Maendeleo– The use of USSD to aid the common mwananchi in
  accessing legal information and services.
• Team My Sheria – A cloud based platform that uses Microsoft Azure (cloud
  computing service for managing applications and services through data centers)
  to aid Kenyans in understanding legal information in their local dialects.

The trophy of the Global Legal Hackathon Quarter Finalist went to Team Wakili Companion for their innovation solution.

The winners will work for free at the Lawyers Hub for the next two months as they proceed to the semi-finals and hopefully thereafter represent Kenya in New York City in May 2019.