July 16, 2012 – Mandeville, Manchester, Jamaica… Nigel Coke/IAD
A team of students from Northern Caribbean University (NCU) in Jamaica walked away with top honors in the mobile app competition at the Digital Jam 2.0 Marketplace and Job Fair held recently in Kingston Jamaica.
Team PPS, or Porthole Position System, made up of Joel Dean, Nicolas Brown, Michael-Joel Atkinson, Mario Dennis and Jovi-chen McIntyre, recognized the need to lessen road fatalities and injuries caused by the scores of potholes in Jamaica. So they devised a mobile application to not only assist motorist navigate through, but also to alert the government in fixing the potholes.
“We realized that Jamaica has no system in place to assist drivers while they are on the road and so we decided to use our skills and knowledge in technology to assist in this regard,” said team captain Joel Dean. “Many accidents are caused by drivers not knowing the condition of the roads and are sometimes caught off guard.”
PPS Jamaica is a cross platform web and mobile application that gives users the opportunity to access and utilize the pothole information of Jamaica’s roads. The app uses mobile platforms namely, Android, Blackberry and iPhone to enable users to access this information anytime at their own convenience. It is a community-driven application, therefore data about the location and pictures of potholes are supplied by users.
“Initially,” Dean continued, “we will make the first version of the app free to motorists, with a system in place for the Government to subscribe to the information, which can assist them with creating detailed statistics about the number of potholes in each region, parish or town.”
PPSJamaica provides an interactive and easy way to review and rate roads based on the ever growing data repository. Users can view the rating of a road based on its pothole density. They can view and create road reviews, while having the ability to see the location and pictures of individual potholes. They can also upload images and location of potholes using their smart phones, and earn rewards for participating.
In addition to the main award, team PPS was also winner of the Audience Award and placed second in the Development Award segment. Another team from NCU – Team Olympal – was second in the Technical Excellence Award
Approximately 2,000 young Jamaicans participated in the Digital Jam 2.0, which aimed at creating solutions to the problem of youth unemployment in Jamaica, by providing job opportunities via the global virtual economy. Another aim of the program is to improve skills in Information Technology.
Digital Jam 2.0 is part of the Caribbean Growth Forum, a new one-year initiative led by the World Bank, the Inter American Development Bank and the Caribbean Development Bank, that brings together stakeholders from the private sector, academia, civil society as well as the Caribbean Diaspora.
For their success, team PPS left the competition one million Jamaica dollars richer, eight android phones, six months internship at FLOW Digital Network Jamaica.
Three members of the team received assistance with scholarships to Howard University in Washington DC.
“We are extremely proud of the phenomenal achievements of this team of students who have work very hard to develop this mobile application that is both practical and relevant especially to Jamaica, said Dr. Kenrie Hylton, NCU Chair of the Department of Computer and Information Sciences. “The department has a track record of making a significant contribution to the information technology domain as it relates to innovation and creativity. We hope to continue this trend of educating students to make significant contribution not just to our society, but to the wider world.”
Earlier this year, Minister of Science, Technology, Energy & Mining, Phillip Paulwell, revealed that his ministry would be working with NCU to undertake the expansion of the institution to make Mandeville the hub of Information & Communication Technology in the region. *
NCU is known internationally for its dominance in the annual Microsoft Imagine Cup Competition. They were crowned regional champions in 2005, 2007, and 2009 Microsoft Imagine cup. In 2007, NCU Imagine Cup Team ICAD represented Jamaica and the region at the world finals in South Korea where it outclassed competitors from across the globe to place 3rd in the world.*
Information from NCU’s website dated March 16, 2012 was used for this article.
