Pioneering app gives millions access to ambulances

University of Warwick, UK graduate from Ghana designs revolutionary navigation app.

For the first time ever, 8.7 million people in Ghana have access to ambulance services, even without internet connection.

SnooCode allows Ghanaians to navigate using GPS pinpointing without needing traditional address system.

Founder won British Council entrepreneurial award in Accra this month.

Millions of people in Ghana have gained access to life-saving emergency services, thanks to a revolutionary navigation app designed by a University of Warwick, UK graduate.

Sesinam Dagadu, who is originally from Ghana and studied at Warwick’s School of Engineering, has developed a pioneering app – SnooCode - which allows Ghanaians to access essential services and find their way around - without needing a traditional address system.

For the first time in the history of the ambulance service in Ghana, 8.7 million people can now be reached by paramedics using this app in the most hostile conditions – even where there is no internet connection.

SnooCode generates a unique alphanumeric code for each property in Ghana, and uses GPS to pinpoint the property’s exact location. When an address code has been created, the user enters it into the app, and its navigation system calculates the best route to the property.

As well as the emergency services, taxi drivers, couriers, food delivery drivers and garbage collection can also use the app – and the code can even be used in place of an address to open a bank account.

The same code is always linked to the property, so internet connection isn’t required – and people with even the most basic education can use it.

The app could be used in counties which face similar difficulties as Ghana, and a global version of SnooCode is currently being developed.

Sesinam Dagadu, founder of SnooCode, won the ‘Entrepreneurial Award’ at the British Council ‘Study UK Alumni Awards 2017’ in Accra this month.

He comments on designing the app, and his education at Warwick:

“Designing the app has required a lot of observation of the things that frustrate and limit people due to a lack of an adequate address system. We see our job as being to make all these problems go away.

“The University of Warwick provided an environment like no other with smart, driven and passionate people from all over the world in which one can easily be convinced of one’s ability to make a difference.

“In a world where knowledge is becoming ubiquitous and readily available to all, Warwick did a very good job of directing and focusing learning and research activity but more importantly, in my opinion, exposing their students to the world’s problems and giving them a shot at solving them.

“Warwick left me with a view that we are all here to solve problems and make new things possible.”

SnooCode has been identified by World Health Organisation (WHO)’s African Network for Drugs and Diagnostics Innovation (ANDi) as a key technology in providing timely emergency care across Africa and in the battle against infectious and vector-borne diseases like malaria, cholera and Ebola, by allowing healthcare professionals to identify the centres of disease and other outbreaks.