Brilliant Apps Solving Local Problems Worldwide
Apps are often developed to solve convenience problems – cheaper taxis or snack delivery services. We highlight the innovators across the world who are improving lives with apps that offer tangible solutions for a range of issues from cattle care to an online queing system for village water-collection so that girls can spend more time studying.
Paani Hai Javai, India
Meaning ‘water is life’, the Paani Hai Javai app was developed by a team of three 12- to 13-year-old schoolgirls from Dharavi, as part of the Dharavi Diary project, led by filmmaker Nawneet Ranjan.
The project, using the MIT App Inventor, an open source tool to develop applications, came about after Ranjan decided to leave his life in San Francisco to live in Mumbai’s infamous Dharavi slum district with the desire to build skills, confidence and aspirations with the young people living in desolation.
The app was designed by football loving friends Fauzia Aslam Ansari, Sheetal Rathore and Sudha Chalwade. Addressing the fact that girls are the ones who have collect water for their families, and that the long queues can mean arguments, waiting for hours and either missing the chance to go to school or to do homework.
Paani works by creating an online queue which notifies registered neighbours when it is their turn to collect water. The girls chose to create an app that would be accessible to older generations and increase its chances of success in their local area. The trio are hoping to tweak the app so that locals can also be notified when the water supply becomes dirty, another huge problem in India.
Refunite, Denmark
Refunite’s story begins with Mansour, a young refugee from Afghanistan who fled to Pakistan with his family at the age of 12, only to be separated from them by a trafficker who had promised to take them all to Scandinavia.
The app founders, brothers Christopher and David Mikkelsen met Mansour five years later in Denmark, whilst working on a documentary.
In the process of trying to trace Mansour’s family, they realised humanitarian agencies didn’t share information, with hard copy systems leading to dead end paper trails for people desperate to see their loved ones.
They managed to track down one of Mansour’s brothers six years later through sheer luck and persistence.
In setting up Refunite, they’ve created a digital tracking system that reunites around 150 people with their families each month, with over 400,000 refugees worldwide registered.
The service works by asking people to register their details and the information of the person that they are searching for via SMS, a free call (Refunite have set up call centres around the world too), USSD or the Refunite website. Refugees can get in touch with each other via the platform and once they’ve established who they are looking for, they exchange details.
By collating data from different agencies around the world, the app’s algorithms cross-reference the details supplied including names, clans, neighbourhoods and even teachers’ names.
Previously, the Red Cross opened 700 cases per year to reconnect people. They now open 700 per day. Refunite is part of the solution.
FoodCloud, Ireland
According to statistics from the UN, worldwide, we’re wasting an awful lot of food. If just a quarter of the world’s current wasted food was saved, then 870 million people worldwide could be fed.
In short, it’s a very good thing that Food Cloud App founders Iseult Ward and Aoibheann O’Brien love food and hate waste enough to be doing something about it.
FoodCloud is a social enterprise based in Ireland which connects businesses that have surplus food with the charities in their local community that need it through their tech platform.
A business uploads details of the food they have available and this is sent as a text message to a local charity who can pick it up. In 2012 they organised their first exchange, between a farmers market and a local care home for teens.
Four years later, after working collaboratively with grassroots groups and local businesses, they have 350 stores signed up including Tesco and Aldi. This has enabled 750 charities across Ireland and the UK to receive the equivalent of 2.2 million meals.
With the rise of food poverty and charities facing funding cuts, it’s a brilliant model that tackles multiple pressing social issues at once.
Cultural and social exclusion is a harsh reality for deaf people around the world, which is why the brilliant developers at Ludwig decided to step in and create an app with accompanying software to allow deaf people to enjoy music.
The app is named after Ludwig van Beethoven, the world famous composer, who himself created music whilst steadily losing his hearing, before becoming deaf altogether. Ludwig works as software connected to a bracelet that converts sounds into a series of colours and vibrations, which literally allows the wearer to ‘feel’ the music.
The importance of touch is key, as over time people with hearing impairment develop increased sensibility, making this an ideal way to experience sound. Users can also see what sound ‘looks’ like with a visual board that uses colour and imagery, a beautiful means of allowing the universal language of music to become a more universally inclusive space.
Democracy OS, Argentina
The way that politics plays out online is fascinating. Endless polls, endless opinions, ranty statuses and little that actually changes in the real world.
Cue Democracy OS, an app and a political party. Launched by a collective of activists, entrepreneurs and academics in Argentina, the platform is focused on closing the increasing gap between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent. They’re interested in how ordinary citizens engage with politics and in ensuring that people can engage with politics outside of election season.
When a new piece of legislation is brought to the Argentian Congress, DemocracyOS is used to explain it in plain language.
For every bill coming into parliament, the website offers key information and the opportunity to vote and feedback on laws. Why? Pia Mancini, one of the founders of the platform, said in her Ted Talk, “We are 21st century citizens doing our best to interact with 19th century designed institutions that are based on an information technology of the 15th century.
It’s time we start asking: What is democracy for the internet era?”