The winner of the best consumer mobile device application for 2019 is Over, an app which falls part of a global creative technology business with offices in Cape Town. This award, sponsored by personal safety app MiBlackBox®, is one of 12 app winners announced at the MTN Business App of the Year awards ceremony held last week in Sandton, Johannesburg.

“The MTN App of the Year award supports small South African app developers competing in well-established markets,” says Brent Thomson, Managing Director of MiBlackBox. “It is important to recognise and encourage the efforts of the companies developing apps for local markets.”

The aim of Over is to equip users with the design tools, confidence and knowledge required to build a business, grow a brand, or stand out in an increasingly crowded world. It has grown from humble beginnings in 2012 as a simple “text over photos” app for sharing goals and inspirational quotes, into a powerful communications design tool for businesses and individuals used around the world. The product has evolved, but the vision is the same: A world where everyone can realise their ambition through creativity.

“At Over we work incredibly hard to build a platform that empowers everyday consumers to build brands, grow businesses and turn their creative ambitions into reality. This award places huge emphasis on customer centricity, so to be acknowledged for the work we’ve done in this regard is incredibly humbling,” says Kobus Brümmer, VP Engineering at Over.

Over has a brilliant gesture-based navigation and a great selection of intuitive tools to create world class designs, for both digital and physical application. It is one of the most versatile mobile design apps available and allows users to create from professional templates or start from the scratch. Over allows gives users professional grade tooling like customise colour, opacity, size, kerning and alignment. There is a vast choice of templates, graphics and fonts, created by a team of designers and branding experts. Beyond being able to share your photos on social media, Over also offers scheduling, allowing users to schedule when their post is going to be published, an incredibly useful tool for busy people.

Their vast user base varies from large businesses, graphic designers, entrepreneurs, and bloggers, to vloggers, influencers, and people just looking to create beautiful designs.

Award entries in this category were all judged according to strict criteria, assessing whether they provided opportunities to make the lives of the everyday consumer easier and more convenient. The solution needed to be customer centric.

Sponsors of the Best Consumer Solution category at this year’s MTN Business App of the Year, MiBlackBox® is a personal safety and virtual witness app that helps South Africans keep their family and friends safe at home and on the road. With MiBlackBox users can track friends and family, record audio and voice messages that are automatically stored and sent to emergency contacts and capture picture and video evidence that is automatically uploaded to secure servers.   

The MTN Business App of the Year Awards also announced last week included the best health solution, best enterprise solution, best incubated solution, most innovative solution, best health solution, best gaming solution, best agricultural solution, best financial solution as well as best breakthrough developer, best “South African” app and Best Women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) solution.

These awards play a vital role in elevating local entrepreneurs and showcasing exciting new innovations within the ICT industry in South Africa, providing a platform that celebrates local talent, rewards out-of-the-box thinking and continues to enable new technology start-ups to build innovative applications.

Some of the apps which have been discovered through this platform over the last 8 years and which are now household names include Snapscan, Khula! Stokfella and Domestly. With only 50 entries in the inaugural competition in 2011, this year saw over 600 entries, a clear indication of both the popularity of these Awards as well as the growing pool of talented app developers locally.

For more information go to https://www.madewithover.com/.