MTN backs App that reduces queues at bus parks

May 17, 2017 in Business, Technology & Telecoms by Editor

Members of the JustGo team display their dummy cheque of $1000 after being declared the winners of the challenge.

May 17-JustGo, a mobile application which can help reduce queues for tickets at bus parks, emerged as the overall winner at the 2017 MTN App Challenge.

App developers were asked to come up with innovative prototypes of mobile-based solutions under the themes of M-Health, M-Finance, M-Education, M-Business, M-Entertainment and M-Agriculture.

The Chief Executive Officer MTN Uganda, Wim Vanhelleputte, advised young people to focus primarily on applications that will revolutionize society. He said some of the best performing brands on stock exchanges around the world first focused on the difference their products make in people’s ways of living, and the commercials followed automatically thereafter.

JustGo offers travelers on long journeys a chance to book their bus tickets through both a mobile app and USSD code. Other winners under the different categories were; Nightingale under the M-Health Category, MunoWatch under the M-Media & Entertainment Category, SomaAfrica under the M-Education Category and HAS under the M-Agriculture Category.

“This is how brands have employed successful business models, that is offering the public free services that they would otherwise be reluctant to pay for and then make money through advertising and other sources like research and information processing,” Vanhelleputte said.

JustGo, which came under the M-Finance category emerged winner out of the 100 App Developers that participated in the second edition of the MTN App Challenge under different categories which was launched in April 2017. The challenge was done in partnership with MTN Uganda and Outbox a tech and incubation hub.

Each team received $ 1,000, a Certificate of Recognition for each team member, commercialization support from MTN, 1GB internet to all team members for three months and a Smartphone for each team member.

Vanhelleputte said, “It’s our hope that over and above the employment opportunities this initiative creates, applications developed will help the country find solutions to improved service delivery in sectors like health, education, agriculture and entrepreneurship in general.”