AMPION Venture Bus West Africa-born tech startup FindMe has gone live, offering a web and mobile app that makes it simple and fast to create, describe and share a location with anyone.
Disrupt Africa reported last year FindMe was among the winners of the AMPION Venture Bus West Africa leg, and four months after being formed on the bus the startup has now launched its product.
User mark a location on a digital map within FindMe’s application, and receive a unique location code which can be customised with the user’s name or own title for any purpose. This code can then be shared easily with anyone through WhatsApp, SMS or email.
Co-founder Joseph Zotoo said FindMe was an important tool as it is estimated Africa loses approximately US$34 billion each year in revenue and other costs because of broken address systems.
“Even in areas with addresses in place, the local community is often not aware of it and these addresses are not digitized and they usually resort to the use of local names as they do not know the official names assigned by governments,” he said.
“Directions to find a place are usually given over the phone, resulting not only in inefficient processes, but in case of emergencies, even in lost of lives. As a child, I witnessed a fire incidence that burned down my neighbour’s house to ashes because the fire service couldn’t find their way to the house on time. Lives perish daily due to the inability of emergency services to find places on time in almost every mega city in Africa.”
FindMe’s mission is to ensure users never get lost. Zotoo said apart from the simplicity and user friendliness of the platform, the intelligence gathered provides important insights for governments, businesses, and emergency services.
