6 Cool Projects Out Of MIT-AITI Nigeria 2011 Programme

Four local technology organisations, Aurum Valley, Cistematix Ltd, Encipher and Wennovation Hub recently collaborated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s African Information Technology Initiative (AITI) to produce rockstars in mobile technology at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

The MIT-AITI programme was organized around student group projects where each student group were tasked with developing and marketing an innovative mobile service business.

Here are 6 projects that came out of the programme and that could mature into successful technology companies in the near future.

Pluss is a J2ME based solution that allows for easy reporting of expenses, cash available at hand, and other sundry things around our finances that we rarely remember to record. It also allows for a seamless integration with bank account(s) that allow statement of accounts to be supplied at the touch of a button.

The TING MOBILE JOB FINDER® is a web based mobile application that provides job listings to mobile phone users and sends job listings that pertain to a particular job-seeker’s preferred career and location information.

Invenio is a mobile based web application that lets users find products or services they are looking for. Invenio plans to do what Nigerian Yellow Pages and Naijasearch.com don’t really do, which is help people find local small businesses via their mobile phones and based on their location. Invenio will first be introduced as a mobile site accessible on both smart-phones and feature phones.

Compass provides local navigational aids including transportation routes, types and prices from your mobile phone or tablet device. It relies on data being populated by indigenes of a particular locality who know the area.

EasySoft is a suite of mobile applications written in J2ME and features EasySMS, a mobile Bulk SMS app that allows you send SMS at cheap rates to all mobile phones, regardless of the network carrier, location and phone type. The EasySMS application is local but connects to the Internet when it wants to send an SMS, so you’ll need an Internet accessible phone to use it.

NaviGate is a mobile traffic notification application that would provide real-time traffic information to road users with the capability of analyzing all alternative routes between two different locations. The app would also include a system-generated rating to advice users on the accuracy of traffic information aggregated from all sources being explored.