The K20 project won the first jury prize in the final of the competition of the second edition of the UPDEV Challenge for the best innovative projects in technology across the Democratic Republic of Congo.

On Saturday, March 20, during the award ceremony for the winners of this competition, 3 best innovative projects were awarded in Goma, in the province of North Kivu out of the 10 finalists of UPDEV Challenge 2 by the start-up Developers, which is full of developers.

The first prize was published at K20, a mobile and web application developing in the event industry.

According to its initiator, Ézéchiel Kawede, this project aims to promote local tourism by organizing events in certain tourist sites on the national territory in order to attract tourists and maximize income.

“We make events available to one in the region. We noted a lack of an organization working in events and the culture of tourism in DR Congo was abandoned to its sad fate, which is why we have set up this application to help and put in the intelligence of people tourism culture. We make events available, we promote local tourism by organizing events in certain sites in the DRC, we make people pay and that's where we generate money, ” said entrepreneur Ézéchiel Kawede. , winner of this competition with more than 70% of the ratings from the jury.

The second project is to be named “Couveuse vie”, an innovation of Charmante Banzwa, a medical student at the Free University of the Great Lakes Countries.

This is a chargeable device connected to a mobile phone for nursing staff that can alert the newborn when a variation in vital parameters is observed and intervene.

This is in order to limit the high mortality rate of premature children and improve their living conditions during care.

The third-best project was that of Ngoy Mpiana Petronnie, a young entrepreneur living in Lubumbashi who is interested in cybercrime.

According to the organizers of this competition, the objective aims at the entrepreneurial spirit among young people in the sector of New Information and Communication Technologies and to find different innovative ideas, solutions to the problems that plague the country, thanks to mobile applications adapted locally by young people.

Dan Baruka, co-founder of the start-up Uptodate Developpers, at the same time informed that the first winner received as a reward a jackpot of 1,000,000 Congolese francs, the second winner 500,000 and the third 300,000 francs Congolese alongside multiple training and coaching sessions.

“As a start-up that works in new technologies, we have an interest in promoting new technologies in the educational environment and in the lives of young people especially because we understand that by being in new technologies if others really don't know what NICTs are, we tend to believe that in Kivu it's only war, we want to show that in the East there are also good heads, good projects, young people who are capable of achieving great things. We have to promote technology, in order for us to evolve properly with development, we have to promote this,” he said.

This competition, organized under the theme "Investing in technology is investing in human capital", targeted young people of the age which varies between 12 and 30 years old and holders of a technological project in the big cities of the DR Congo.

Among the activities organized by the start-up Les developers à jour include training in schools with technical options to give young people a taste for NTICs, training for students.


Source: [https://congosauti.com/updevchallenge21](https://congosauti.com/updevchallenge21)











DRC: The K20 project wins first prize in the UPDEV Challenge 2 competition for the best innovative projects in technology

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DRC - The K20 project wins first prize in the UPDEV Challenge 2 competition for the best innovative projects in technology

**"Giving young Congolese the chance to express themselves and the space to exploit their potential"**,

this is the mission that the start-up **Uptodate Developers** has given itself by organizing, on two occasions, a competition striving first to develop certain skills necessary for the success of the participants' projects and then to put in competition the technological solutions they carry, among which the best are highly rewarded. The competition is therefore naturally called **[<u>UPDEV CHALLENGE</u>](https://updevchallenge.com/)**.

**In January 2020, the year the competition first appeared**,

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> Updev Challenge turned out to be more than just a competition. It was indeed a time when young and old, students and teachers, trainers and developers came together and were intensely involved in supporting and enriching the ideas of young people who wanted to use technology to tackle the country's problems, and this, in a pragmatic way, either through the implementation of computer applications.

Strictly speaking, from the submission of applications to the awarding of prizes, each of the two editions saw the following phases follow one another:

- Registration: Participants, and project leaders, submit their applications for $5. The competition is open to young Congolese between the ages of 12 and 30. Several dozen participants have thus been identified at each edition.

- Then comes a week of intense training where participants are encouraged to develop their thinking skills, their critical thinking, and exercise their oral expression to sharpen their project presentation methods. They are accompanied by coaches, entrepreneurs, and trainers of choice, experts in their fields.

- During the pre-selection, all the projects that have applied are reviewed.
Each duly compiled file is randomly assigned to 4 of the 8 members of a high-level jury. 10 of them are selected provided that they best meet the pre-established selection criteria. This includes presenting an original solution, and integrating a technological application, to a well-specified problem in our society.

- The home stretch is thus launched, an opportunity for competitors to further refine their projects. The final preparations are set in motion for the final event, closing the activity. This took place on January 29, 2020, for the first edition, and on March 20, 2021, for the second. These are days celebrated with great fanfare where eminent personalities, doctors, professors, panelists, and actors with in-depth knowledge of technology-related fields are invited and entrepreneurs from the country's ecosystem.

![UPDEV-254.jpg](/uploads/UPDEV_254_23ab63204a.jpg)

At a time when the third edition is looming for this fall, the startup Uptodate Developers wishes to renew its mission to promote new information and communication technologies in the DRC, and even in Africa, by designing computer solutions to the problems of society, as well as its willingness to actively involve young people and actors wishing to work for this objective...

To learn more, please click [here](https://updevchallenge.com/).

A look back at the smooth running of the first 2 editions of the competition for young technological project leaders, organized by Uptodate Developers.

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What to remember from the first 2 UPDEV CHALLENGE editions ?

AgroApp is a project developed by the startup Uptodate Developers in partnership with the Higher Institute for Sustainable Development (ISDR-GL/Goma).

AgroApp is a Mobile application connected to soil sensors that allow returning data on the state of the soil, data that will allow farmers to know when to plant, what to plant and how to plant taking into account the period and the state of the ground.

For this first version, the application allows agricultural engineers to enter data on the seeds they cultivate to allow anyone who seeks to cultivate to inquire about the information necessary to reduce the level of cultivation error and maximize production.

For this version of the AgroApp application, only the dry season and the rainy season have been taken into account.

You will also find the following information for growing each plant:

- Medium temperature
- Air humidity
- The precipitations
- PH rate
For future features, we plan to be more specific by adding:

Where the information for each plant comes from
Connect the application to soil sensors to be able to retrieve information on the state of the soil automatically. 
The sensors will thus retrieve information on the state of the soil, send it back to the application, and thanks to the data in the application, the user will have the result of a selection of plants compatible with the state of the soil.

You can download the app here : [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.AgroApp.client.AgroApp](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.AgroApp.client.AgroApp)


AgroApp comes to help farmers to maximize their productivity by giving them the possibility of having information on the cultivation of their seeds.

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AgroApp Version 1.0.0

Cardano and Africa seem to have been intertwined from the beginning. It would sometimes appear as if the blockchain itself had been designed with the sole purpose of helping to develop the continent. However, there are still certain issues that must be resolved before full adoption takes place. There are many African citizens who refuse to receive ADA, due to the difficulties they face in exchanging it into their locally used currency. However, a start-up company by the name of UPDEV, consisting of more than 18 developers who work in the field of web, mobile, and desktop applications may have a potential solution on the cards. 

![AdaExApp-ICON-BLUEPP.png](/uploads/Ada_Ex_App_ICON_BLUEPP_8295f20df2.png)

**Wallets and More Wallets**

As of now, there are several types of wallets that allow Africans to receive ADA. Yet, as yet, there isn’t an app that provides the opportunity for them to easily exchange ADA into their local currency. This is why the team at UPDEV has decided to design a mobile app that will allow for the exchange of ADA into a local African currency. This should hopefully remove some of the hesitancy which is currently stopping Africans from adopting ADA. Having said that, the adoption of ADA continues to grow across Africa, and businesses in the region will soon be required to offer a convenient way to convert cryptocurrencies into their local counterparts. Think of it like this, salary payments from abroad, transfers of funds from investors and sponsors, or payments from abroad could all be received in ADA, and easily converted into the local currency via means of the proposed ADA to Mobile Money App. This will help facilitate countries that don’t yet recognize cryptocurrency as a usable, daily commodity.

**So how will it work?**

The user in question simply logs into the crypto mobile app and adds ADA to their wallet. They then simply enter the amount they wish to convert. The app uses a script that passes through a stable coin which will give the $USD equivalent. If the user is happy with the conversion rate, they then enter a ‘mobile money number. This allows the App to send back a request to the server, which plays two roles. Primarily, the request will take the ADA and transfer it to the central wallet. Following on from this, the corresponding amount (in whichever currency) will be transferred from our mobile money account. All transactions will be stored on the blockchain.

**How will it be achieved?**

The team will start by creating their own ADA wallet, and then implement the Mobile Money API (Airtel Monet and Orange Money). The required wallet doesn’t need that long in the way of development time. It’s also trustless in nature. If you’re reading this as a newcomer to the crypto world, ‘trustless’ is a good thing. The team has a fully planned roadmap for completion and execution, which can be found below.



*Source* : [https://adapulse.io/up-dev-wants-to-bring-ada-to-the-money-money-app-in-africa/](https://adapulse.io/up-dev-wants-to-bring-ada-to-the-money-money-app-in-africa/)

UPDEV has decided to design a mobile app that will allow for the exchange of ADA into a local African currency with Mobile Money.

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ADA To Mobile Money App

# UPDEV CHALLENGE 2nd edition

After a successful first edition, here comes the second.

As for the first edition, registration is $5 per project.

The enrolled students then follow an intensive 7-session training program with different trainers, which allows them to develop their critical thinking, speaking, and presentation skills to ensure that they are well-prepared on the day of the competition.

At the end of this training, the judges take a record time to select, based on the selection criteria, the top 10 projects to be retained to be presented to the judges in the final.

<u>Objective: </u>
The objective of this competition is to first find different ideas, different solutions to the problems of our country, in order to provide solutions, and to have as many applications as possible "made in the DRC". Secondly, it is to give the chance to these young people with innovative ideas to have support so that their ideas are implemented.

The vision is to give the winner the chance to exploit his potential, by triggering him the framework, the equipment, and the appropriate environment.

## 1. Eligibility conditions

- Be in the age group of 12-30 years
- Be able to speak French or English
- Be of Congolese origin
- Candidates must be available during the week of the training
- Have a technological project

## 2. Selection criteria

- Your project should describe the concern you want to solve and how to solve it, including the technologies you use or need to develop.

- Your solution be original or constitute an improvement of the solutions found.

- You must consider that many Africans have variable Internet access depending on the frequency of their use and the devices they use (laptop, tablet, mobile phone).

- A graphical presentation should accompany the presentation, how the solution will work, and a sample user interface.

## 3. Advantages

- Participants benefit from the week of training in which they have the opportunity to present different trainers, most of whom are entrepreneurs, developers, and business leaders who can intervene in the development of their projects.

- The first 3 candidates will benefit from the monitoring of their projects until the terminal phase (deployment) and monetary prizes including 1st CDF 1,000,000, CDF 2nd 500,000, CDF 3rd 300,000

- The winner of the UpDev Challenge is selected by a high-level jury, after a presentation and a demo where he (she) receives exciting prizes, including a monetary prize or a phone or tablet or a computer portable

Project competition bringing together young people between 12 and 30 years old with an innovative project and financially and technically rewarding the best 3.

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UPDEV CHALLENGE 2021

While the whole world was on high alert and the virus was spreading exponentially, information sharing had proved to be of the utmost importance for everyone.

However, for all its blessings, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has a delicate national health infrastructure that faced the most serious challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic. The transmission rate of the new coronavirus, responsible for COVID-19, imposes a challenge of a completely different magnitude. 

So in April 2020, we joined an international group of African scientists and technologists to fight the pandemic in one of the most challenging battlegrounds. We have thus contributed to the [website ](https://www.covid19drc.com/)design, which provides statistical tools to follow the official figures of COVID-19 in the DRC. Information on the number of confirmed cases, deaths, recoveries, and active cases by province and date.

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So in the context of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, we participated in the **Free Face Shield** project. The objective was to support the local manufacturing of protective equipment that was freely given to health professionals and first responders. We cover the cost of production via fundraising, volunteering, and different collaborations.

The COVID-19 RDC team covered production costs through fundraising, volunteering, and various collaborations.

We were part of the various teams in Goma in North Kivu who produced protective visors using 3D printers.




What have you done in your field to help your community against COVID-19 while the whole world was worried and in alert ?

News

DRC - The K20 project wins first prize in the UPDEV Challenge 2 competition for the best innovative projects in technology

What to remember from the first 2 UPDEV CHALLENGE editions ?

AgroApp Version 1.0.0

ADA To Mobile Money App

UPDEV CHALLENGE 2021

COVID-19 | DRC

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