From scholar to entrepreneur

Ramdeen graduated with First Class Honours in Electrical and Computer Engineering from The UWI, St Augustine Camus and completed an internship at IBM Research Center in New York. Ramdeen’s current focus is to assist local authorities responsible for fixing the nation roads.

In an interview with Business Day, a passionate Ramdeen said he is frustrated by the condition of the roads in Trinidad and Tobago, and that something must be done about it. Lamenting that he was forced to change two tyres in the course of three months due to the horrible ‘back roads’ of Trinidad, especially in the Caroni area, Ramdeen decided to take matters into his own hands.

With the hope of getting Government support, Ramdeen created an android app (application) called ‘Pothole Locator’ that allows citizens of Trinidad and Tobago to generate data based on road conditions. This data includes potholes, burst WASA lines, flooding, bush fires, land slips and nonfunctioning traffic lights.

If a user sees an issue they want to report, he or she can simply take a photo at the location, open the app, choose the “add new” button, select the type of issue to report and submit. The app would then store the type of issue being reported along with the exact GPS location. If a user is not at the location of the issue but still wants to make a report, there is a map option that allows him or her to pinpoint the location and then upload.

The data is then available for anyone using the application to view.

“The intention is for those responsible for maintaining roads, to use the data to more efficiently manage their duties,” said Ramdeen.

Future features of the app would allow the government and other authorities to respond to road issues submitted via the app. They would be allowed to set the status of repair operations and the contractors responsible for repair which, Ramdeen hopes would allow for transparency and peace of mind for the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago knowing that issue within their communities and by extension the country are being addressed.

The app can be used both online and offline; therefore, if a user does not have access to the internet, he or she can still submit the issue via the app and it would automatically be uploaded when connected to the internet.

According to Ramdeen, although the Ministry of Works and Transport does have a form on its website to report these issues, “it doesn’t allow citizens the opportunity to provide the exact location of the problems, for example, if someone types in the address of a pothole in a specific road, repair crews going out to fix the problem will still need to find the exact location of the pothole and may even encounter delays finding identified streets.” He said the Pothole Locator app however shows the exact location and type of the issues at hand. Users would also be able to view issues in various parts of the country which were uploaded by other uses, and could see if the issues were fixed and by which contractor. Once released the app would be free for download on the Google Play Store.