Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) in partnership with Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and MEST, is organizing the first ever Accra Trotro Apps Challenge from May 27-28 at the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology in East Legon.

This competition will bring together key players from the transport sector and the technology ecosystem to develop smartphone applications aimed at improving mobility in Accra.

After 24 hours of brainstorming and coding, the jury will select the team with the most viable app as the winner of the competition.

With a current population of about 4 million and more than a million people commuting daily to the city for various socio-economic activities, Accra is faced with a significant public transport and mobility challenge. In 2015, AMA – in partnership with AFD and Concordia University (Canada) – gathered data on over 300 active trotro routes and hundreds of stops.

This data will be officially made public for the first time at the Trotro Apps Challenge.

“The focus of our transportation planning efforts as a local government administration is to continue to introduce the right policy environment here in Accra to improve both social and economic services," Dr. Alfred Oko Vanderpuije, Mayor of Accra said.

He said the demand for social and economic services within the city is growing every day and the complexity of our urban systems today poses a formidable challenge for our comfort and efficiency in moving from one part of the City to the other.

"Fortunately for us, there is a good stock of technological tools available and applicable to these challenges which include mobile apps. The AccraMobile project is an important effort to engender the interest of all stakeholders in order to collectively solve the urban mobility problems we encounter in our daily commute and travel,” Dr. Alfred Oko Vanderpuije, Mayor of Accra said.

Every trotro route registered with local authorities was surveyed by a team of data collectors using GPS-enabled smartphones. This data was then used to design the first map of Accra’s transport network which was unveiled by Dr. Vanderpuije in December 2015.

The Accra Trotro App Challenge is also meant to complement several infrastructure and transport projects currently being implemented in Accra.

According to Mrs. Amélie July, the Resident Manager of AFD, “In addition to financing new transport infrastructures and services – as we are doing on the Accra-Amasaman corridor, for instance, we want to promote a more efficient use of the existing transport system. That is what the Accra Trotro Apps Challenge is about; developing smarter ways for people to navigate the city using trotros”.

During this 2-day event, technology innovators will compete to come up with exciting app ideas in the field of mobility based on the data of Accra’s over 300 active trotro routes.

The apps will be judged most heavily on the validity of the problem they are addressing and how innovative the solution they would apply is. They will also be looking at how richly the data is used in both these areas.

Less weighted will be the viability of the solution, how well it will improve people's lives and how the app will monetize. The quality of the pitch, the actual code and the user's experience will be the final factors to be considered - Todd Holcombe, Senior Faculty at MEST.

Visit: http://www.trotrodatathrowdown.com to register for the competition and get more information.