Elidinga youngsters develop app to keep Tembisans informed

Youth in the township have got great innovative business ideas to pursue.

However, they often refrain from following their dreams because they lack information on how to access resources and financial aid. Many of them resort to drugs, crime, alcohol or just roam around street corners when they reach a dead-end of unemployment.

Two young fellas of Elidinga Section, Lebogang Moholo (26) and Lunga Mthombothi (29) vowed to reach greener pastures against all odds as young entrepreneurs in the travel and local mobile application industry.

They developed an application (app) built on Google’s Android platform which serves the sole purpose of notifying, sharing, announcing, informing and helping people share activities/events happening around them in actual time.

When asked how they came up with the idea, Moholo, who is the founder of the project, said together with his friends they embarked on a journey around their neighbourhood of Tembisa going to buy food at a local store and found the store closed.

They further went on to an ATM to withdraw cash, to their surprise the machine was offline. Thereafter there was heavy traffic on their way back home, load shedding and police all over the area.

Moholo suggested the concept of creating a device which will inform the community of such activities happening around them.

Moholo and his friends prototyped one and found out that the device was going to be expensive and by then the app market was booming.

They started researching on how to make an app, and successfully generated Outdoor Alerts.

“The mission is to crowd source and map activities.

“We are up and running and connecting people to the world around them,” said Moholo.

Moholo emphasized that the app running on the Nougat version of Android, is accessible on Google’s Play Store and has regular updates and upgrades.

“The activities/events are not limited to us, users who download the application also get to share or suggest activities based on criteria.

“The application is free from the Play Store.

“All people need is a working email address to register and you are good to go,” added Moholo.

He explained that there is no centralised application that caters to travellers and locals when it comes to mapping and informing them about what’s taking place in real time.

“Our app has been differentiated in a crowded market in two ways, introduction to our core feature that no one else has, and have targeted a specific niche, which is to get the app into the hands of people who need it most.

“By doing so, we have enabled ourselves to live alongside other information sharing services like Twitter rather than competing with them,” he said.

When asked how they want to see the app perform in five years’ time, Moholo said they want to see the app leading the travel and local mobile application industry.

Moholo’s message to young people is if you’re not chasing the dream you are wasting your time.

“Where there is a will, there is a way,” said Moholo.