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Real-time water tester wins AMPION Venture Bus pitch competition

A smart, real-time water quality testing unit created by two young entrepreneurs won the Southern African AMPION Venture Bus Africa after pitching at AfricaCom in Cape Town this month.

E-Maji went up against eight other teams at the AfricaCom master class stage and walked away with the grand prize for its solution which measures water quality at a drinking source in real-time. If contamination is detected, the system uses a built-in GPRS transmitter to send GPS coordinates of the source to authorities to facilitate a speedy reaction, but not before the unit shuts down water supply using an electronic water valve.

E-Maji can be used with any of the 700 000 boreholes across the continent which have (before) proven quite complicated for authorities to maintain and monitor.

“When we got on the bus we had a very clear and simple objective, we were going to use technology to solve a problem without focusing on the technology itself,” said E-Maji co-founder Taf Makura. “We were aware of how technological requirements of any kind can quickly get in the way of mass adoption in Africa. Our technology had to work in the background without placing any technical requirements on the people it was meant to help.”

Meanwhile in the East African edition of AMPION Venture Bus Africa, car pooling service JamboCar came out tops after impressing a panel of 12 judges during a pitch contest in Kigali, Rwanda.

“I am thrilled to have met such amazing people on the trip with AMPION through East Africa! Ideas turned into lean pitches and strangers became friends. We look forward to building our platform and rolling out our business as a joint African – European cooperation,” said Betty Ngugi, CEO of Jambo Car.

Next, the AMPION Venture Bus Africa tour heads off to Tunisia with a specific focus on developing ICT solutions to improve democratic participation and citizen governance.

 

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