UPDATED 15:44 EDT / AUGUST 22 2019

APPS

Can we mobile-game our way to a cleaner, greener Earth?

Mobile games can be engrossing, even seriously addictive for some players. Hours idled away thumbing smartphone screens can get shamefully high. Wouldn’t it be great if we could spend time gaming and do something worthwhile, like save the planet, at the same time?

Technology students from Kazakhstan thought so; they noticed the trash cans in their school weren’t as full as they ought to be. So they developed an application to gamify environmentally friendly behaviors.

“Gamefication and the augmented reality … which is inside this game is more visually and psychologically attractive to people,” said Dilnaz Kamalova, who was a Team Coco participant at this year’s Technovation World Pitch event — a night of networking and connecting to support young women (ages 10-18) from around the world aspiring to change the world through tech. Each team at the event previews their business proposal and pitches their app. 

Team Coco worked with Technovation — the world’s largest technology entrepreneurship program for girls — to sharpen their technology skills. Called Teco, the app puts players in the role of an astronaut charged with saving Earth. They must solve various ecological problems. It features a step counter that tracks their carbon footprint and encourages them to choose more eco-friendly transportation options.

Kamalova and teammates Dana Yerlanova, Lyubov Dudchenko and Malika Buribayeva spoke with Sonia Tagare (@SoniaTagare), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Technovation World Pitch event in Santa Clara, California. They discussed their gamified approach to eco-responsibility (see the full interview with transcript here).

App locally, think globally

The Teco app works in tandem with hardware outfitted on special trash receptacles in the city. These receptacles are displayed on a map so that users can find them easily. Each time they throw an item in the garbage, they receive points. 

Incentivizing eco-friendly behavior through a game-like experience can have a noticeable impact, according to Team Coco. “We already launched it in our school, and now the eco-trash boxes with our hardware always full,” Buribayeva said.

Technovation not only helped the students learn new tech skills; it also helped them understand how to develop a business model for an app. And they learned important lessons about incorporating varying viewpoints to develop a better product. They are hoping to scale the app out globally and create an eco-friendly community across Central Asia.

“We are trying to engage and educate people to be more global and to be more responsible for our planet and for our home,” Yerlanova stated.

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Technovation World Pitch event.

 Photo: SiliconANGLE

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