mYouth Mobile Camp (English)

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mYouth Mobile Camp, 21-22 March 2016 at the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung

http://myouth.mobilesenegal.org

The mYouth program

mYouth – Mobile, Young, Opportunity, Unity, Technology, Help – is a program supported by a European grant awarded to the Mladiinfo NGO established in Macedonia. The goal of the program is to build capacity in the area of mobile development. Ten countries are benefiting from the program through the involvement of ten organizations: Austria (International Center for New Media), Bulgaria (ESICEE), Spain (Fundacion Cibervoluntarios), Ghana (iSpace Foundation), Hong Kong (Hong Kong New Emerging Technology Education Association), Italy (Scambieuropei), Macedonia (Mladiinfo International), Poland (Institute of New Technologies), Senegal (Mobile4Senegal, http://mobilesenegal.org) and Singapore (Sustainable Living Lab Pte Ltd).

Mobile Camp in Senegal

The mYouth program includes the organization of Mobile Camps. The first camp was held in Senegal in March http://myouth.mobilesenegal.org. Six teams were selected to participate in the Mobile Camp. The six apps focused on health, education, transportation, environment and business.

The camp was organized around lectures on entrepreneurship, apps made in Senegal, Design Thinking and User Experience (UX) Design. Participants attended mentoring sessions on the technical aspect of their mobile applications and pitching in French and English.

Mentors and speakers came from structures such as the US State Department (Fulbright), the Ministry of the Environment, People Input, Microcred, mLouma, Novotech, PayDunya, UCAD and Voxygen. They kindly gave their time to share their experiences, give advice to the participants and help them prepare their pitches.

The winners will take part in the European Youth Award (EYA) in Austria and in an Android training in Macedona with the winners of the other countries.

The panel of judges was chaired by Mrs. Bitilokho Ndiaye, Technical Advisor on Gender at the Ministry of Posts & Telecommunications, and composed of Karamokho BADIANE (Ringier Digital Marketing & Concree), Mamadou DRAME (Co-founder and EdTech Catalyst, DigitalSchool Technologies) and Adama KANE (Founder, JokkoSanté). They identified the best projects on the basis of innovation, potential, and the pitches in French and English.

The winners

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The first prize was awarded to meeLearn. meeLearn is a set of interactive games for pupils from the 1st grade to K12. It allows them to learn and test their knowledge in mathematics, French, English, physics, chemistry and biology. Surprisingly, the team behind meeLearn – Frederick H. E. GABA, Florentio Ulrich DE SOUZA, Laurel O. GBENAFA and Oliver NDECKI – was formed following a meeting at the HackXplore hackathon at the Forum Mondiale de la Langue Française in Belgium. Students at NIIT, Frederick and Laurel already developed several apps including Da’Karapid, a game that permits to discover the crowded streets of Dakar in Car rapide.

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The second prize was awarded to Andando. Andando is a mobile platform for carpooling that reduces travel costs and contributes to preserving the environment. Andando is a mobile application developed by students from UCAD.

Two projects were runner-ups. CasaTour, an application created by students of Assane Seck University in Ziguinchor, promotes tourism in Casamance. Saytouma allows daily monitoring of diabetic and hypertensive patients.

What’s next?

This is just the beginning of mYouth! The teams are benefiting from mentoring to enhance their mobile applications, distribute them in Google Play, market them and participate in international competitions.

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