African Drive
Economic & social impact in countries with poor global infrastructure
Overview
After successfully starting a bus transport company in Benin called Baobab Express, providing cheap and reliable transportation as well as jobs to more than 200 people locally, they wanted to take things further and start solving some of the energy issues.
Baobab Express is building up an ecosystem of energy solutions based around a self-developed rechargeable battery capable of powering everything from electric motorbikes to household devices.
Project Stage
When we started working with them, the project wasn't much more than idea. First sketches of the hardware were being discussed. We were asked to help out with the client and internal user facing software.
After more than two years of development, together with other partners, we're now running a first pilot in Benin with motorcycles. Meanwhile we are helping them with hiring a local team to take over development and maintenance from us.
Initial Goals
Our first contact with the client was to audit the work a Beninese development agency did for Baobab Express. After that, talks quickly moved to supporting the Baobab Energie project as well.
The initial question was for us to help with the design of the whole ecosystem of apps surrounding the batteries, the mobile app for end-users, a mobile-first web app for the people managing the points-of-sale and recharging station, and a web admin for the support and management team.
Services We Offered
We started with an audit of the work done by a local development agency for Baobab Express.
Because we were involved so early on in the project we were able to make sure the right features were built by helping out with product management.
The end goal is for a local team to further develop and maintain the different applications, so madewithlove was asked to help finding that local team and mentor them.
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