Before the launch of the iDEA Tinapa centre, there was a 42-hour app-building hackathon to give developers, designers, and entrepreneurs the chance to create applications that showcase the vibrancy of Nigeria’s entertainment industry and our rich cultural heritage. Of the ten teams that competed, three finalists emerged.
In third place, we had Team 8 with their app called HealthLaunchPad, a mobile app that uses rich media to provide health services in Nigeria. The team was made up of Oguntade Temitope, a graduate of Electrical and Computer Engineering who handled the server side of development; and Olofu Mark, a graduate of Mathematics with Computer Science who handled the client side of development. We had a chat with them and this is what they had to say:
How did you come up with your solution?
We simply looked at a few of the challenges we have in Nigeria, then we spent time evaluating how rich media can be used in solving these challenges. The health sector seemed to be of enormous importance.
What need does it address?
It introduces an alternate source of medical consult when money, accessibility and/or time become bottlenecks. Nigerians can find medical facilities, experts, and a lot of notes and discussions on diagnoses, ailments and health tips. We offered easy usage by providing a single field where you can simply type what is on your mind and have the system find the result you intend to see. This means if you need to consult an expert based on, say STDs, just type how you feel or the ailment and the system will match your natural language to experts and medical facilities close to you and based on your financial needs. To have consults, you can chat, message or have VoIP conversations with these experts. Experts offer premium and free services.
What difficulties did you have in trying to build the app
We just needed more rest.
How did the iDEA centre/hackathon help?
By bringing us together to understand that with rich media we can offer solutions to some of Nigeria’s challenges. The environment was also encouraging and we could focus more on the problems than logistics.
Where do you see HealthLaunchPad in 3 years? What is the plan for sustainability and continuity and potential monetization/profitability?
Solutions mostly need a certain level of financial investment to get implemented. If we happen to find one, we will explore options for sustainability and continuity and potential monetization/profitability.
Any last words? Lessons learned? Advice to people in software development?
Hackathons are good things, participate! Software systems are beautiful things, build!
