Tech Firm Launches First Lost-And-Found Platform In Nigeria

Indigenous tech company, Derasoft Nigeria Limited, has founded the first online lost-and-found portal in Nigeria.

The platform, FindMissingThings.com, which was launched on Friday in Abuja, was created as a medium for Nigerians to report missing items or for people who discover other people’s missing items to help them find such.

In a statement made available to THE WHISTLER, Derasoft’s CEO, Young Ozogwu, said the platform was launched to make it easy for people to recover their misplaced items.

“We have an idea of what needed to be done, so, together with my team, we came up with FindMissingThings.com. Our mission is to strengthen and improve the chances of the public through technology to recover, retrieve or reunite with their lost properties, which otherwise would have been very difficult for them to have another opportunity of repossessing it”, he said.

Ozogwu said the firm began work on the platform in May 2021.

He described it as a multi-level platform that is designed for the public to submit into the matching system, any lost or found property.

“Our matching system uses a complex algorithm to intelligently match the submitted items, informing the lost user when a match is found and who potentially found the lost item”, he said.

He added that those who found other people’s missing or lost properties stand a chance to be financially rewarded each time they publish the items they found on the platform.

Derasoft’s Chief Technology Officer, Ridwan Idowu, said the portal is easy to use as users can register, report lost or found item and allow the system to do the matching and user notification.

He said they were already forging partnerships with public institutions and stakeholders to drive the project.

Ozogwu said the benefits of the platform include online real-time reporting of missing and found items as well as a centralized database that serves as a repository of both lost and found properties.

He said the platform also collects and analyses accurate and timely data on missing properties, while creating employment opportunities for those that will be involved in data management of the portal.

He added that the creation of the platform would solve the dilemma some people face when they discover someone’s lost item without knowing how to reach the person, while also “integrating stakeholders or champions that include managers of public spaces with sizeable populations and high tendencies where items are easily forgotten, misplaced, lost or found. E.g Motor parks, recreational parks, restaurants, airports, worship centers, schools e.t.c.”