<p>The 2017 shortlisted finalists for the second West Africa Mobile Awards (WAMAS), the first truly West African technology awards to recognise the region’s leading mobile and tech companies, have been announced.</p>

Following the success of last year’s WAMAS, 2017 has produced a vast array of entries from exciting new technologies and services, from startups to established ventures driving progress in West Africa.

A prestigious judging panel featuring experts from AppsTech, Disrupt Africa, TechLoy, Women In Tech Africa, CcHub and many others worked together to down- select from the many worthy entries and create the shortlist.

The shortlisted finalists by category are as follows:

Best App

Commerce & Retail: BrowseDotCom, BuyOverChat Technologies, Dress Me Outlet, Jiji.ng, OLX

FinTech

Mobile Education

Mobile Innovation

Mobile Marketing Campaign: Bloom Interactive, Cloomify, Tecno Mobile, The Guardian, Unilever

Social Impact

Social, News & Entertainment: BattaBox, Bloom Interactive, Media Navigation, Optiweb Communications, The Guardian

Outstanding Industry Achievement: Faith Adesemowo, Omobola Johnson, Rebecca Enonchong, Ugo Okoye, Vytautas Paukstys

Young Gun of the Year Award

All shortlisted companies will be celebrated and the winners announced during an awards gala party on the evening of Thursday, 18th May at Rooftop, Lagos with over 150 mobile industry executives, international media, investors, prestigious judges and sponsors.

The WAMAS are supported by BBM, Mobile West Africa (MWA), AppsAfrica.com, Wimbart PR, Dress Me Outlet, Kasi Insights and many other industry-leading organisations and publications.