NAME:

DAVID MWANGI.
REGISTRATION NUMBER:
CT201/0011/16.
COURSE:
BACHELOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE.
YEAR:
FINAL YEAR PROJECT PROPOSAL.
TASK:
COMPUTER SYSTEMS PROJECT.
PROJECT TITLE:
ONLINE MEMES PLATFORM
By
DAVID MWANGI
A Project Proposal Submitted to the School of Computing and Informatics in
Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science in
Computer Science of Meru University of Science and Technology.
December 2019
 Declaration
I declare that this proposal is my original work except for the cited works and has not been
presented in any other University for an award of degree or any other award.
DAVID MWANGI (CT201/0011/16).

Signature: __________________________ Date: ___________________

Certification

The undersigned certify that they/he/she have/has read and hereby recommend for acceptance
of
Meru University of Science and Technology a Project Proposal entitled ONLINE MEMES
PLATFORM
Dr. Makau Mutua, Ph.D.
Signature: ______________________ Date: ____________________
Meru University of Science and Technology
P.O Box 972-60200, Meru, Kenya.

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I thank Almighty God for the far He has helped me all through in my proposal and without
doubt.
I would also wish to acknowledge the immense help of my parent for always being there to
assist me in mentorship, financial and moral throughout the duration of this project.
Thirdly, I wish to acknowledge the assistance of my Supervisor Dr. Mutua for guiding
me all the way to the completion of this project.

iii
 DEDICATION

I dedicate this project to my family members, mostly my two teachers and my beloved
Parents and my son, through their financial and moral support towards my upkeep in school.
God bless them all abundantly.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTENTS
Declaration............................................................................................................................................ii
Certification...........................................................................................................................................ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENT.......................................................................................................................iii
DEDICATION......................................................................................................................................iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS.......................................................................................................................v
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................6
1.1 BACKGROUND INFORMATION.......................................................................................6
1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT....................................................................................................7
1.3 OBJECTIVES........................................................................................................................8
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT...................................................................................8
1.5 SCOPE OF THE PROJECT..................................................................................................9
1.6 LIMITATIONS OF THE PROJECT.....................................................................................9
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW......................................................................................10
2.1 INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................10
2.2 THEORETICAL REVIEW/CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK..................................................10
2.3 CRITIQUE OF THE EXISTING LITERATURE RELEVANT TO THE STUDY...................11
2.4 FUNCTIONS OF THE EXISTING SYSTEMS..................................................................11
2.5 CHALLENGES OF THE EXISTING SYSYTEMS..................................................................11
2.2 PROPOSED SOLUTION....................................................................................................12
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.......................................................................13
3.1 OVERVIEW..............................................................................................................................13
3.2. RESEARCH DESIGN..............................................................................................................13
3.3. DEVELOPMENT TOOLS AND MATERIALS......................................................................13
3.4. SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY.....................................................................14
3.5. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS..................................................................................................14
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................15

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 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND INFORMATION.

At the growth rate of African economy, both African open and private divisions
need to adjust their monetary plans to great administration and pioneering capacities,
particularly those of the youthful age. This will prompt an age of youthful and
vigorous individuals with the capacity to solidify monetary additions. This is a
potential weapon that can be utilized by organizations and government establishments
in Africa to change the landmass from being minimized to a huge power in the
worldwide economy. Despite the fact that in a moderate pace, organizations in Africa
have turned their attention on enrolment, improvement and maintenance of gifted and
skilled nearby representatives to coordinate their business culture and drive
achievement.

Some African countries have the wildest growing economies in the world
owing to improved infrastructure, enhanced economic management, increased
production of goods and services and the expansion of the middle class, despite these
positive aspects African countries are still faced with various challenges and lack of

sufficient employment to its youth is one of them, often leading to high rates of poverty. The
history of insecurity in Africa associate’s high youth unemployment with the numerous
situations of instability on the continent. In order to address poverty, we need to address other
factors like employment in Africa. Youth are the future of Africa we want tomorrow,
therefore there is need to consider investing in our young generation.

There is need to provide our youth with platform to exploit their ability and talents.
There is need to connect creativity with great opportunities. Utilization of our youth abilities
will also help eradicate other negative things in Africa. Crime rates will go down since our
youths will busy enhancing and developing themselves positively, the rate of drug abuse will
also reduce.

There is rapid growth in use of internet in Africa, this growth is creating an impact
each an everyday in our lives. Youth are the largest group in using the internet and most of
our youths are idle on the internet but at the same time their creativity is evident.

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 A good example to show youths in Africa are idle but at the same time extremely
creative and talented are use of memes. Meme is an idea, behaviour, or style that spread from
one person to another within a culture-often with the aim of conveying a particular
phenomenon, theme, or meaning represented by a meme. It can also be thought to be a
concept, or a piece of media that spread often as mimicry or for humorous purposes. They are
often spread through the internet and other social media. Below is an example of meme:

Majority of creative African youths out there just create memes for fun and they earn
nothing on them despite their memes spreading all over the world. There is need to connect
this kind of creativity to opportunities.

1.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT.

Internet memes have become quite popular and phenomenon over the past few years.
There are memes of any topic all over the internet. Memes are all over the internet and they
go viral within a short period of time. Most memes are created depending on the happenings
in the world for example elections, locust invasion, Christmas holiday any many more. Their
relevance may last for a short period of time and some can only be understood by a certain
group of people based on their culture and language similarity.

There is no specific platform to create memes and spread them. Social media
exist but they are too general and they make use of memes invisible. Memes are so
common in what’s apps status and everyone who is smartphone user has memes in
their phone gallery. Memes currently does not pay and they are used just for fun, there
is a need to connect this phenomenon with monetary value.

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 There is a need for memes specific platform for memes lovers since memes are
growing so rapidly and they are the talk of the day . I have come up with an online
platform to connect memes with opportunities (which is more of a meme social
media). The online platform will enable idle youths who are creative to come up with
humorous memes in form of pictures, short videos such as gifs. One is supposed to
create an account just like in other social media and make a video or image post. If
their accounts attain a certain number of followers (people interested in their work)
and their post trend and attain a given number of likes and views they will receive
payment. One can also get paid through a partnership program if the uploaded content
also included an advert. This will be a real opportunity for our youths to make money
consequently eradicate poverty in Africa.

1.2 OBJECTIVES.

To allow user upload an image or a video.

To allow a user like a post
To allow a user to follow another user
To allow users comments on uploaded images or video
To generate monthly report on the number of users and uploads in the system

1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT

The proposed ONLINE MEMES PLATFORM will have the following significance:
It will promote creativity and offer a platform for humorous items this will
indeed promote talent to comedians and creative youths. Various youth can get
sponsored by various comedy industries.

It will create job opportunities and hence eradicating poverty in Africa. Users
who have reached given number of followers can get paid if their post attain given
number of likes or viewers. This is already an employment to our youths.

It will enable generate a report on number of users and number uploads in the
system. This will enable the administrator to monitor the condition and number of audiences
in the system, hence enabling monitoring.

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 1.4 SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

Online meme platform will involve creation of accounts to become a user. After
creation of talent account one can to customize their own account by uploading profile
picture and updating their personal information. A user can upload a picture or a video and
can view other upload from other users. He or she can also like and comments an upload.
On the other hand, we have the system administrator who oversees operation of the
platform. He or she can see number of users, uploads made and can also terminate accounts.

1.5 LIMITATIONS OF THE PROJECT

The proposed system is time consuming and require a lot of resources to be fully
implemented. To complete the system on time project scope will be reduced to manageable
level and since it requires a lot of resources there is need to improvise.

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 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 INTRODUCTION
Growth in African is closely linked with reduction of poverty. Many African
countries have failed to create enough job opportunities and despite already existing
opportunities their environments are poor. The region fastest growing economies have less
responsive employment and poverty to growth. Development aid is to some extent
responsible. There is need for Africa to exploit its own resources so that to avoid foreign aid
and heavy debt that are drugging African behind.

Therefore, there is need for Africa to promote its own creativity. African public and
private sectors should take advantage of youth development to help African attain its own
sustainable economic growth.

2.2 THEORETICAL REVIEW/CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

According to (Filmer , 2014) Africa has enjoyed nearly two decades of sustained
economic growth. Per capita income for the continent as a whole is rising steadily, and
regional growth exceeds the global average. Yet, there are worrying signs that rapid
economic growth has not produced equally rapid poverty reduction and growing concerns
that Africa's economies are failing to create enough ‘good’ jobs, especially for the young.
Despite growth, Africa's structure of production and employment today is largely similar to
that of 20 years ago. This contrasts sharply with Asia where major changes in economic
structure have accompanied growth and poverty reduction.

The lack of structural change is reflected in the labour market. Africa's high
productivity sectors are failing to generate a sufficient number of jobs to absorb a rapidly
growing labour force (Kritzinger, & Rossouw,2004) This pattern of structural change
represents a movement from very low productivity employment to slightly higher
productivity jobs. Roughly three‐quarters of Africa's labour force is still in the three sectors
with the lowest output per worker: agriculture and wholesale and retail trade. Moreover,
services have been absorbing workers faster than the sector has been increasing output.

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 Memes—both in the pre-digital and the digital age—are closely related to the process
of norm formation. The memetic practice is not merely an expression of existing social
cultural norms; it is also a social tool for negotiating them. The relationship between memes
and norms is thus twofold: memes both reflect norms and constitute a central practice in their
formation (Shifman, 2012). In the latter sense, the process by which norms consolidate and/or
change is characterized by a memetic-evolutionary pattern (Opp, 1982, 2001): the processes
of adaptation and alternation performed by individuals may scale to mezzo or macro levels. A
deviation from the existing norms may be rejected as a violation, reinforcing collective
boundaries, or it may result in the subversion of these boundaries and the initiation of new
norms.

2.3 CRITIQUE OF THE EXISTING LITERATURE RELEVANT TO THE STUDY

Africa is not poor and Africa is on the rise. Viewed as a continent of wars, famines
and entrenched poverty in the late 1990s, there is now a focus on “Africa rising” and an
“African 21st century.

2.4 FUNCTIONS OF THE EXISTING SYSTEMS

YouTube is the most common social media platform for monetarized content. It
involves account creation using email address. Content can be uploaded and one need to
monetarize an account. The first step in monetizing your YouTube account is joining the
YouTube Partner Program. The YouTube Partner Program is a monetization program that
helps creators make money when people view their videos through advertisements. There are
requirements that are needed in order to make account monetarized which include: At least
4,000 watch hours in the past 12 months and least 1,000 subscribers (Gill, Arlitt, &
Mahanti,2017).

2.5 CHALLENGES OF THE EXISTING SYSYTEMS.

You tube is too general on its content and does not include a specific area but general content,
thus memes can be invisible to some extent due to variety of content.

Most memes are edited pictures; YouTube is not made to exactly support images content but
rather video content

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 2.2 PROPOSED SOLUTION
I have come up with memes specific platform (online meme platform) for
memes lovers since memes are growing so rapidly and they are the talk of the day .
The online platform will enable idle youths who are creative to come up with
humorous memes in form of pictures, short videos such as gifs. One is supposed to
create an account just like in other social media and make a video or image post. If
their accounts attain a certain number of followers (people interested in their work)
and their post trend and attain a given number of likes and views they will receive
payment. One can also get paid through a partnership program if the uploaded content
also included an advert.

12
 CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 OVERVIEW
The chapter includes research methods, research strategy and data collection method
to be used in development of online talent platform.

3.2. RESEARCH DESIGN

This project is based on experimental research where general users are involved while
on the other hand, we have system administrator. A prototype will be designed and developed
and afterwards used in analysis of the solution coming up with appropriate conclusions.
Waterfall system development methodology will use.

3.3. DEVELOPMENT TOOLS AND MATERIALS

This project is a web application, implemented using HTML, CSS, JAVASCRIPT
and PHP. This web application allows users to access the system online through internet
supporting devices. The application allows users to interact with other users and application
itself to give response, and updates the database in real time.

In order to run the PHP system, the machine must satisfy the following hardware

requirements:

a) Minimum 350MB Hard Disk space for installation

b) 4GB HD space required for a typical live system with 1000-2000 events

c) Recommended minimum CPU - Pentium 4, 3.2GHz

d) Recommended 1GB RAM.

e) PHP also requires the following components:

f) Server − PHP will work with virtually all Web Server software, including

Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) but then most often used is freely

available Apache Server.

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 g) Database − PHP will work with virtually all database software, including Oracle and

Sybase but most commonly used is freely available MySQL database.

h) PHP Parser − In order to process PHP script instructions a parser must be installed to

generate HTML output that can be sent to the Web Browser.

3.4. SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY

A waterfall system development life cycle methodology and prototyping will be used. This

involved the following stages: -

a) The new system requirements will be defined.

b) The proposed system will be designed. Plans will be laid out concerning the physical

construction, hardware, operating systems, programming, communications, and security

issues.

c) The new system will be developed. The new components and programs will be obtained

and installed.

d) The system will be tested

e) Once the prototype is up and running for a while, it will exhaustively evaluate.

3.5. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Throughout my research I took following measures to guide me on ethical issues:

i. The materials used for reference and personalities were all credited through

quoting them as authorities in the reference section of this research work. This

was done to avoid the possibility of plagiarism.

All observations carried out in my research were true.

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 REFERENCES

Filmer, D., & Fox, L. (2014). Youth employment in sub-Saharan Africa. The World Bank.

Kritzinger, A., Barrientos, S., & Rossouw, H. (2004). Global production and flexible
employment in South African horticulture: experiences of contract workers in fruit
exports. Sociologia Ruralis, 44(1), 17-39.

Shifman L (2012) An anatomy of a YouTube meme. New Media & Society 14(2): 187–203.

Gill, P., Arlitt, M., Li, Z., & Mahanti, A. (2017, October). Youtube traffic characterization: a
view from the edge. In Proceedings of the 7th ACM SIGCOMM conference on
Internet measurement (pp. 15-28). ACM.

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