| Danial Norjidi |
TWO local students recently won a start-up grant worth B$20,000 for an app they developed that provides people with real-time tracking of buses to find updated bus routes, bus stop locations and seat availability.
‘E-Route’ is the creation of Muhammad Al-Akif bin Irfan, a student in his second year at Politeknik Brunei (PB) and Muhammad Amin bin Haji Fauzul, a PB graduate.
The app was submitted by the two under the group name of ‘Team One’ as part of the first National ICT Hackathon, which concluded at a ceremony at the Design & Technology Building in Anggerek Desa on May 14.
The participants of the hackathon competed over two stages. In the ‘Idea-thon’ stage, each team was required to propose ideas, suggestions and concepts on how to address the issues related to their selected theme out of nine given themes: Brunei communication hub; crowd funding on community and charity; intelligent emergency response; talent search centre; interactive/dynamic open data platform; property guide; public transportation; local tourism; and Brunei fitness.
Next was the ‘App-athon’ stage, where each team was required to develop a mobile or web application based on their ideas from ‘Idea-thon’.
Team One’s submission went to be named the winner of the Student Category in the competition, and saw them being awarded a start-up grant worth B$20,000 to develop the final product, as well as access to facilities provided at the iCentre, six months’ access to available classes offered by the Industry Business Academy, a one-month mentorship at Microsoft Brunei, a trophy and a certificate.
After his team was named winners of the student category, Muhammad Al-Akif delivered a presentation on E-Route, sharing with the audience the problems they were looking to tackle with their app.
Muhammad Al-Akif bin Irfan and Muhammad Amin bin Haji Fauzul, creators of ‘E-Route’. – DANIAL NORJIDI
These included insufficient bus information, pollution, increasing number of private transport, increasing number of road accidents, congestion, and total number of people using public transport in Brunei Darussalam.
“What we realised is that there are less people using public transport, so what we are trying to do is increase the number of people using public transport in Brunei Darussalam,” Muhammad Al-Akif said.
“That’s why we developed this application, which provides real-time tracking of buses, updated routes, bus stop locations, availability of buses and also online payment.
“What encouraged us to make this application was our wanting to make the public transport system efficient in Brunei Darussalam.
“So what we did was we made use of the current public transport system, which is the coloured buses,” he said, sharing that the app can help enhance the efficiency of the current bus system in the country.
“Therefore we hope that it would be able to increase the number of people using public transport, improve customer service, reduce congestion, provide efficiency and reduce dependency on oil.”
He shared that E-Route will show the different locations of bus stops available in the country.
Another notable feature is that it allows users to find nearby bus stops.
In a video demonstration, the team explained how the app works. When using the app, choosing one of the bus stops on a map will show the address and further information.
By clicking the location icon, users are provided with a route to direct them to that specific bus stop.
By clicking the bus icon, it will show them the types of buses that will intersect to that bus stop.
Also, clicking one of the buses will provide information on number of passengers, bus location and route.
In addition, clicking the bus location will show the current location of the bus.
Muhammad Al-Akif also shared that he and Muhammad Amin came up with the idea and implemented it themselves, added that they spent two weeks developing it, during which they barely slept.
“We were glad and satisfied that we were able to finish everything,” he said, noting however, that there was still work to be done.
“We still need to sort out the features and the layouts. But overall I think we’re doing well.”
Muhammad Amin explained that they both played important roles in the app’s development, saying, “Akif and I, we used to be a group of four people, but then two of our members dropped out because they wanted to focus on their studies, so there were only two of us left.
“We needed to divide the work equally, so we just decided that Akif would be handling the business side of our operations as well as the design of the software and systems, and I would be working on the programming, because there was so much research to do.”
Queried on how it felt to win, Muhammad Al-Akif said, “It feels great. I wasn’t sure if we would win or not, because during the ‘App-athon’ stage, I predicted we would just make it in the top five, due to the strength of the other competitors.”
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