UTG Student Builds Gambia’s First Instant Virtual Card Platform In 100 Days

A second-year Information Systems student at the University of The Gambia (UTG) has made history by building The Gambia’s first digital dollar wallet.

Abdoulie O Jallow, from Foni Bullock and now based in Bijilo, built the entire platform in 100 days without external funding, documenting his journey daily on social media.

Jallow said his passion for technology started at Nusrat Senior Secondary School before he enrolled at UTG to study Accounting and later switched to Information Systems.

He said The DX App was inspired by the daily struggles Gambians face in accessing digital dollars.

He said young people usually want to shop online, trade forex, pay for domains and software, and receive payments as content creators, but cannot easily obtain bank cards.

“Today, if you want to shop online you have to queue at the bank for an expensive card. I wanted to build something made for Gambians that is easy to understand,” he said.

He said the DX App will solve this by allowing any Gambian to fund their DX wallet directly with Wave, Afrimoney, QMoney or APS and instantly generate a virtual Visa or Mastercard on their phone.

“The card can be used anywhere Visa and Mastercard are accepted to shop online, pay bills, subscribe to software and trade.”

Jallow said building a platform like DX would normally cost $700,000 to $800,000, which he cannot afford.

“I therefore set himself a 100-day public challenge to built the first prototype with AI tools such as Claude and Replit, then recruited developers after 55 young people applied to join me.”

To meet regulatory requirements, he explained, “DX will operate as a technology company, not a fintech holding customer funds. Customer funds will be held by regulated international custodians and accessed through secure API integration.”

DX has not officially launched yet.

But Jallow said the app will be tested with real users in the next two weeks, with public launch expected next month, starting with buying and selling of digital dollars and virtual cards.