15 March 2013: The Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) of the World Bank recently launched a competition, called the “Sanitation App Challenge,” to allow the public to pick the winner of the best app to solve sanitation problems. The recently announced winner, San-Trac, provides audio hand washing reminders, collects hand washing data and transmits it via SMS to a remote server.

Data gathered as a result can be aggregated and viewed for insight about hand washing trends. The system is solar powered and provides a cell phone charging station for restroom users.

The Sanitation App Challendge built on the “Sanitation Hackathon,” an event featuring over 1100 participants at 14 locations worldwide to define central sanitation problems affecting around 2.5 billion people. Since the Sanitation Hackathon, held from 1-2 December 2012, app developers were assisted by the organizers of the competition to further develop their ideas before opening the process of public voting.

Following the efforts of technology and sanitation experts during this event, along with a process of citizen consultation, the winner along with 10 finalists were selected.

The 10 finalists will be announced on 22 March, on World Water Day, in an award ceremony in Washington, DC. [Sanitation Hackathon] [Sanitation App Challenge] [World Water Day]