The Best of the Best
Heidi Williams
In Uganda, the word "wakabi" means "best of the best," so when economics major Tyler Van Herweg '15 was looking for a team to help with his idea for facilitating transportation in rural Uganda, he turned to the School of Engineering's Frugal Innovation Lab. He found that help when Silvia Figueira, director of the Lab and associate professor of computer engineering, quickly paired him with computer science and engineering students Michael Brew '15 and Bryant Larsen '15.
Van Herweg had identified a problem while working with a social enterprise in Uganda during the summer after his junior year. "Because of poor infrastructure and high transportation costs, African firms are depressed by about 40 percent. It's a huge issue in Uganda. Motorcycle drivers currently offer ride-sharing services by word of mouth, but many drivers sit idle while farmers are desperately looking for a way to get their produce to market. With so many Ugandans already using 'dumb' phones—cell phones that lack the functionality of a smartphone but enable SMS or texting—to keep track of and move their money, I thought their phones could be used to frugally improve the efficiency of transportation, in turn stimulating the local economy. I applied for and received a Fulbright Fellowship to work on developing a method for connecting boda boda [motorcycle] drivers with small-scale entrepreneurs using SMS to function like a stripped-down version of Uber."
The engineering students quickly got to work designing a mobile app for their Senior Design project. "Our system builds on the existing boda boda process but organizes the procedure," said Brew. "When a new driver starts a shift the app sends a text showing all those in the vicinity who need rides. Data is collected on destination, timing, whether the transport is for people, goods, or a combination of both, and then the driver can phone the client to finalize details."
Larsen said, "We also built in a feature for monitoring the drivers. After the ride, the user is sent a survey to rate the experience, and comments are saved in a database monitored by an administrator."
"For some senior capstones," said Brew, "you might work on a project that you don't pursue beyond what’s necessary to fulfill the requirement. With Wakabi, we can actually benefit people. Launching the app into a sustainable business to improve the lives of many is the end goal." He added, "If research validates that the idea works, the sky's the limit."
Van Herweg will be in Uganda September through June, working with social enterprises Solar Sister and BanaPads Limited and testing the app. "It's been a huge lesson learning who to reach out to and how to make ideas become reality. The Frugal Innovation Lab has a track record of success doing projects like this, and these guys make it easy. Entrepreneurs dream of working with people who make the process seamless and rewarding, and working with Mike and Bryant has also lent credibility to the project with the Fulbright folks. Their documentation from Senior Design was such a great help," said Van Herweg.
The project lives on in the Frugal Innovation Lab, too, as computer engineering graduate students Pratyusha Joginipally, Sowmya Chandrashekarappa, Rahul Ramachandra, and Sharadha Ramaswamy continue work on improving the functionality of Wakabi.
Read Tyler’s blog: wakabilogistics.com/DiscoveryBlog