Fraunhofer Center for Assistive Information and Communication Solutions – AICOSWith the objective of simplifying Mozambican administrative acts, Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS is developing IZIDoc project under the Information and Communication Technologies for Development Competence Center (ICT4D-CC).
The IZIDoc is a mobile solution aiming to inform citizens of the availability and status of the requested goods or services, thus saving time and avoiding useless dislocations, optimizing customer service. The project intends to simplify administrative acts that require personal attendance at service provider's facilities such as administration, police, pharmacy, bank, among others. The IZIDoc solution focuses on the development of a mobile application that will allow to search information related with different types of documents addressing service requirements, map visualization, timetables, costs, average waiting times, document processing times, etc. It will also allow to search for people or friends who have already dealt with the same type of document. Furthermore, a notification will alert the user when the document is ready to be collected.
In this first phase, the project is being deployed among the student community in the Academic Secretariat Services of the Mozambican Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) with the goal to extend this solution use to other interested public services. A second deployment shall involve different partnerships with other Mozambican Institutions (e.g. Conservatories, Criminal records, etc.).
The innovation on this project relies on the integration of diverse administrative services under a single platform and on the fact that in the Mozambican context, and in the developing countries in general, IT and Internet services have still little presence.
The IZIDoc solution has started in collaboration with the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM) in Mozambique, where the first pilot is taking place. Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS will also welcome one senior researcher from the UEM to coordinate the development of this solution in close collaboration with two MSc Students and a coordinator professor from the Informatics Center (CIUEM).
This project is part of the framework of ICT4D-CC (ICT4D Competence Center), with reference “Projeto n.º NORTE-07-0124-FEDER-000042”, co-financed by the Regional Operational Program of the North (ON.2), in accordance with the National Strategic Reference Framework (QREN), through the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER).