Mapping emerging and informal Nigerian businesses through crowdsourcing
Team Leader
Kamil Shafiq
Software Platform for Self-Reported and Community-Based Data Collection
Solution Pitch
The Problem
Globally, more than 1 billion merchants are undocumented, meaning that customers cannot find them, cities cannot plan for them, and entrepreneurs cannot learn from them. As a result, small shops are digitally invisible to customers, and cities lack the data to help inform the infrastructure developments to serve them.
The Solution
Poket is an application that incentivizes people to crowdsource information about small merchants in emerging economies. The app prompts users to contribute information to the system and verify others’ uploads in exchange for redeemable rewards, which encourages reliable input.
Leveraging this crowdsourced information and GIS data, Poket generates free advertising, enterprise insights, and proof of existence for local entrepreneurs. It also provides customers with a wider view of their local business environment and consumer options. The result is a global map of previously undiscoverable retailers, which allows more of them to succeed—and which creates insights to inform city planning decisions.
Market Opportunity
There are over 1 billion “undocumented merchants” globally that remain unmapped, unstudied, and offline. 90 percent of these merchants work in emerging economies, where there is great potential for location analytics and enterprise retail insights to drive revenue opportunities. In Nigeria, for example, retail data is minimally available, often outdated, and expensive to obtain, costing $1.5 to $2 million for a nationwide retail audit. Poket crowdsources this data collection, providing real-time, granular data at a fraction of the cost.
Partnership Goals
Poket currently seeks:
Microfinance banks and organizations that can help inform small business credit-worthiness;
Financial inclusion organizations that can help provide new work opportunities for people once they gain access to digital banking;
Mobile money agencies interested in using Poket’s data to better understand areas of low penetration; and
Local universities to find campus ambassadors, hold activation events, build trust among young people, and help garner product adoption.
Featured in Startup Toronto for work on financial inclusion and dignity.
Existing Partnerships
Poket currently partners with several organizations, such as:
Ryerson Social Venture Zone, a collaborative workspace for social ventures in Toronto;
Trade Commission Service of Canada, which explores new clients and areas of expansion for Poket’s application;
Creative Destruction Lab at the University of Toronto, an AI accelerator; and
CCHub Nigeria, which supports expansion further into Nigeria.
What is the name of your organization?
POKET
What is the name of your solution?
Poket
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
Software Platform for Self-Reported and Community-Based Data Collection
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Toronto
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
Canada
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-Profit
Film your elevator pitch.
—
What specific problem are you solving?
Traditional field data collection is expensive, slow, and extractive. International NGOs, researchers, and companies struggle to gather accurate, timely information from remote or underserved communities. Without access to localized data, critical decisions are delayed and people in the field remain invisible to systems meant to serve or include them.
What is your solution?
Poket is a mobile and web-based data collection platform used by international NGOs, researchers, and companies to collect real-time data directly from last-mile participants. Organizations deploy Poket in the hands of local community members who self-report structured data such as daily sales, locations, images, and survey responses. The platform includes a mobile app for contributors, a dashboard for clients, and a data verification tool to ensure quality. Poket supports offline functionality, low-cost smartphones, and local languages. It also allows organizations to offer points-based incentives or small rewards, reducing the need for costly field agents. This results in faster, cheaper, and higher-frequency data collection. With Poket, institutions can scale monitoring and evaluation (M&E), baseline assessments, or behavior tracking while empowering people in the field to become contributors and data generators. Poket shifts the model from extractive data gathering to participatory insight generation that benefits both the organization and the community.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Poket serves organizations that need ground-level data and the communities they engage. International NGOs, research institutes, and companies use Poket to gather accurate, last-mile data quickly and cost-effectively. Instead of deploying expensive field teams, they empower local community members to self-report data using smartphones. These contributors may be small business owners, youth, farmers, health workers, or everyday citizens. They receive points or rewards in exchange for validated submissions. For contributors, this builds a digital identity and creates access to new income opportunities, financial inclusion, and visibility. For example, small businesses that previously existed only offline can now be mapped and connected to services. Meanwhile, NGOs and researchers gain timely, granular insights for programs in public health, agriculture, climate, and economic inclusion. Poket increases the speed, scope, and depth of field data while fostering greater community participation and ownership. This benefits both data users and the communities that generate it.
Stats
Nearly 500 merchants in Lagos have been mapped by 50 field-researchers with Poket.
