Local App Friday: Zambian Bill of Rights app

With many citizens still in the dark about this year’s Zambian election referendum question or where to get the information about what’s contained in the Bill of Rights, here’s Ideas Lab’s solution to that. an Android app called the Zambia Bill of Rights. It’s a simple app to use. The drop menu consists the following:

It shows all the data you need on the Referendum, what the actual question is, what people are voting for, what’s being amended, and what will be included in the new Bill of Rights:

It shows users the comparisons between the old Bill of Rights and the proposed one:

It also gives the meaning of citizens voting ‘Yes’ or ‘No, and who exactly can vote.

I spoke to one of the app developers Viktor Kanyoze from the developer company, Ideas Lab,  about it:

What other OS is it available on,  both mobile and PC?

“For now the Zambia Bill of Rights app is only available for Android, we are hoping to have it on Windows 10 by July month end and iOS by September month end. We are also hoping to partner with other stakeholders to enable us cover the major platforms.”

Are you planning to add more content to it later? 

“We are currently working on the cartoon version and infographics to help users easily understand the content. We want to have it translated to the 7 major languages.”

Why did you feel the need to create it as Ideas Lab? 

“We noticed a void in the way the information on the Bill of Rights was being disseminated, mainly through traditional media channels like TV and radio which in essence have a wider reach but lacked detail. We realised that in as much as some citizens had the PDF version building a native mobile application would present  users with a richer user experience as compared to a PDF Version. We also consider ourselves to be educational facilitators i.e. In as auch as the smartphone penetration is low in Zambia, we can leverage the available users who can also help sensitise the rest of the community at large on the Bill of Rights.”

Does ECZ approve ie. no copyright hassles?

“So far we haven’t had any issues with ECZ. I know some Officers from ECZ who have installed the app 🙂

We also acknowledge them for the Referendum Guide which is also part of the App.”

You can download the Zambia Bill of Rights app here.