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Ivory Coast Techies Solve Local Problems With Tablets And Apps

Ivory Coast Techies Solve Local Problems With Tablets And Apps

Apple is facing competition from the most unlikely places in the world. In Ivory Coast techies are coming up with local technology solutions for the Ivorian consumers, developing their own tablets and applications for the local market.

An IT company, Siregex, has developed a tablet specifically for the Ivorian market. The tablet, known as Qelsay (Classroom in Ivorian), targets school going kids who have been overburdened carrying heavy backpack to and from school.

After seeing local school going kids suffer under the heavy weight of their bagpack, Ivorian Thierry N’Doufou came up with an idea of how to help them put and make a profit in the process. He came up with a team of IT specialists that developed the Qelasy — an eight-inch Android operating tablet that holds all government approved textbooks in digital format.,

“It is more than me feeling sorry for them. It is also about filling the digital gap between the south and the north, and bringing Ivorian education into the 21st century,” N’Doufou told IPS.

“The Qelasy is protected against everything that an African pupil without transportation might encounter during the walk to and from school,” says N’Doufou.

The Ivorian-engineered tablet is set to be released next month after it was launched at Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress 2014.  Exactly how much it will sell for has not yet been determined, but it is expected to be priced between $275 and $315.

That’s a steep price in a country where, according to government figures, only two of its 23 million people are classified as middle class, earning between two and 20 dollars a day.

Another locally-developed technology designed specifically to answer Ivorian problems is an app developed by young programmer Regis Bamba that records the license plate numbers and other details of taxis. Taxi Tracker allows a user to send this information about the taxi they are travelling in to selected users who can follow their journey in real time.

It is an attempt to find a way to prevent incidents like the murder of young Ivorian model Awa Fadiga, who was attacked during a taxi ride home in March.

The story of Fadiga’s tragic death gripped the nation as it exposed gaps in the country’s security and healthcare systems. She had been left untreated in a comatose state for more than 12 hours at a local hospital, which allegedly refused to treat her until payment for her care was received.

“It is my reaction to her death. I saw her picture, and I thought: That could be my little sister. I told myself that I could not just sit back with my arms crossed,” Bamba says.

“It is my concrete solution as a citizen until the authorities do something meaningful to protect citizens. So Awa’s death will not be in vain.”

Another application, Mô Ni Bah, was developed by Jean Delmas Ehui in 2013 and allows Ivorians to register new-born babies by sending a text with their mobile phone to his agency.

Trained locals then transfer the information provided in the texts to a registration authority. It has been another important invention in a country where the great distance between rural areas and government centres has hindered birth registration. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, almost a third of births are undeclared here.