A number of mobile apps to help improve road safety and address other transport challenges are now available on various platforms, thanks to a cross-sector partnership involving the World Bank, Egyptian government and companies like Google.
The mobile applications were a product of a competition called CairoTApp, which was launched in June 2012 and targeted Egyptian technology specialists. In the end, Beliaa, an app that helps car owners get road assistance using GPS, won over nine other finalists.
Through Beliaa, car owners can locate and make a call to road assistance centers in Egypt. According to the company, it plans to expand coverage of Beliaa to other countries. The app is available to Android, BlackBerry and Qt phone users.
“The Cairo TApp is a great example of bottom-up, local innovation that can complement the more traditional lending operations supported by the World Bank,” Hartwig Schafer, the donor’s country director in Egypt, Yemen and Djibouti, said last week. “We are very impressed by the creativity and dedication of the young technology specialists who took part, and the energy they bring to solving the everyday problems faced by Egyptians.”
Aside from taking home $3,000, the team that created Beliaa earned a nomination to an international mobile application competition that will culminate in an award show at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this year.
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Eliza Villarino
Eliza Villarino currently manages one of today’s leading publications on humanitarian aid, global health and international development, the weekly GDB. At Devex, she has helped grow a global newsroom, with talented journalists from major development hubs such as Washington, D.C, London and Brussels. She regularly writes about innovations in global development.