Welcome to Mozambique...

“How time flies!  I didn’t know you guys a year ago. lol   We won two hackathons, completed senior design with A and got job offers. When you guys arrive in Africa, you guys become the main players for this project!  Enjoy your time in Mozambique!” Thanks Yi, your message reminded us of where all this got started. Impactors Rock!! Did you guys know how these three people became such an awesome team after all? We will tell you this story some other time because we have a lot of other very interesting things to share right now.

From this blog, you guys realize that we finally reached Mozambique safe and sound after successfully getting the in-transit visa for South Africa in one day while our stay in New York.  And by the way, the surprises did not end there. We had to stay in a hotel in South Africa for one night because of some issues with the ticket confirmation. Seems like we all stay in a different world, people in South Africa said that they don’t trust the online email confirmation for our reservation. But all is well that ends well, as we said we finally made it to Mozambique safe and sound. We are ready for new surprises because that’s what we get here every single day.

Now let’s talk about some real work, after all that’s what we are here for isn’t it? We met Dr. Arlindo, Director of Public Health of Chicuque Rual Hospital, on the second day and got started on work. He discussed a few different kind of problems that they are facing currently. We mentioned how our software can solve their numerous problems and got the opportunity to present our project “Connect the Dots” the third day. This is definitely a good head start. Thanks to Ycenter and Drexel CCI for hosting the whole show. After having these meetings, we came to a conclusion that in addition to using Connect the Dots for just Malaria, we are going to add the functionality in it to collect the data on HIV. During the meeting Dr. Arlindo mentioned about a huge problem of collecting data using questionnaires from different communities. We take internet almost for granted. It is unbelievable that just because the internet is limited or not at all available at most of the places here, they have to travel to communities approximately 75 km (that is 46 miles)  to get those completed questionnaires, then input all the data manually in the software to make any analysis.  We are now working on adding the functionality in Connect the Dots that will allow collecting the answer to the surveys or questionnaires related to HIV through text message and save them in the database. Softwares can make lives easier. And to test this beta version , we are going from Maxixe to Mucamba fae. Awesome right!

The one major good news that you all should know is that until yet we tested Connect the Dots software only using United States numbers. Now we tested the software with the numbers in Mozambique and it works. Cheers!!

Wait… we forgot, the beach view is awesome here in Maxixe. We loved the batata frieta and the apples. Our friend used to call Tarika “French Fry Queen”, I think she is still the same even. Batata frieta is French fries!! And off course she loves them. We also watched Source Code movie and travelled in chappa (local public transport in Maxixe). We will keep the surprises coming. We are on it! See you guys later!!