One App Makes Global Collaboration Easier Than Ever
Akech is a Kenyan living in Halifax who recently graduated from Dalhousie University. She has a passion for mental health awareness and plans on raising awareness around the importance of companionship and support in helping foster an environment that allows individuals to achieve their goals. It was during her studies in Halifax that she met Kibet, a fellow Kenyan in the final year of his Bio-Chemistry program. Despite being miles away from home, their meeting felt like destiny, and they quickly became inseparable. A year and a half later, Kibet proposed to Akech during a beautifully snowy day.
In her work, Kibet knows how much of a difference the right support system can be and appreciates how powerful a single conversation can be in impacting the lives of her patients and people in general. She has a big family, and they are all excited about the wedding and both the bride and groom’s families are coming together to help organise an unforgettable wedding celebration in Mombasa, Kibet’s home city.
Akech is great at managing finances, setting budgets and managing projects. She decided to take the lead in helping coordinate the two families as they worked together to organise the wedding. Fortunately for her, there was no shortage of friends and family looking to contribute to making the big day unforgettable. While sharing and using a spreadsheet easily allowed Akech to plan expenses and expected contributions, once the process of actually receiving, tracking and managing the collected funds began she quickly became overwhelmed. Different family members from around the world used different ways of sending money and some contributions, such as 5 cows from her in-laws were not easy to track / confirm receipt. Issues like this only got worse as more family members heard about the wedding and stepped forward, wanting to contribute to the wedding in some way.
“ng'ombe wawili kutoka kwa familia ya Kibet” “Two cows from Kibet’s family.”
That is when Kibet recommended using Kunye to help Akech keep track of everyone’s contributions to the wedding. The fact that each conversation is a digital wallet allows everyone in the group to easily contribute to the pool of funds, while also easily communicating with all the members of the family to help coordinate the collection and spending of the money being contributed.
Having all of this functionality attached to a group chat made coordinating this effort significantly easier and the natural accountability created by the conversation encouraged those in the group to operate with increased transparency, sharing updates, images, ideas, and celebrating each contribution made to the newlyweds’ upcoming wedding celebration.
Akech and Kibet’s wedding is in a few weeks and everything is ahead of schedule. In a few days they will be flying to Mombasa for the wedding. Thanks to Kunye, the two families were able to easily collaborate, communicate and coordinate all the funds needed for the wedding. Akech didn’t need to check her email and three different money transfer applications to track the money she was collecting. All she had to do was use Kunye and invite her friends and family to join the conversation.
The soon-to-be-married couple found love miles away from home and thanks to the power of conversation and the support of friends and family all around the world, their dream wedding also brought the two families closer together before the big day.
The wedding was a great success and an unforgettable day for both Akech and Kibet. They both agreed that organising a wedding a continent away is not easy, but the ability to easily communicate and coordinate with all involved definitely made it easier. Since then, they have both recommended Kunye to their friends and family to make borderless financial collaboration quick, easy and convenient.
