About

Short description of Startup: This will be a platform for people to report and track corruption. What do you do in detail? The Corruption Tracker Application will be a platform for people to report and track corruption in the government and private sectors. Corruption is an endemic problem in Afghanistan that plagues most institutions in the country, similar to many emerging economies. Corruption directly or indirectly leads to insecurity, poverty, and lack of development as studies increasingly indicate trust is essential to economic growth. In order to combat this, we are building a platform that allows people to report and track corruption in the Afghan government and other corporations. People who witness a case of corruption (embezzlement, nepotism, bribery, etc.) can use its online platform to report those cases and upload any documentation that they might have. The website will compile all the reports, categorize them according to various specifications and visualize those on a map that will show the extent of corruption in every government office. The reports will be available for the public to see increasing transparency and vigilance. Additionally, the website will send regular updates to the relevant government authority. We aim to tackle corruption and encourage transparency and accountability in the government and other institutions through this initiative. One of the problems that corruption has created is lack of development. After an influx of billions of dollars in the past decade by donor countries for rebuilding Afghanistan after the collapse of Taliban regime in 2001, lack of government systems and transparency in investing these funds led to widespread administrative corruption. As result of it, Afghanistan has always been at the top of corrupted countries for the last 10 years. Not only administrative corruption, but bribery, money laundering and outright theft hugely increased during this time. Unfortunately, there has been no record and track of where all these funds have disappeared to. Due to high levels of corruption in the Afghan government, foreign aid has now been reduced enormously. And most of the foreign countries have bounded future aid conditional to eradicating corruption in the governmental entities. Since Afghanistan’s development has been severely dependent on foreign aid, now most of the development projects which have been funded by foreign aid have ceased while measurement of infrastructure growth, development projects and public services also shows decline. Now, corruption has taken deep roots in administrative entities and it needs a system to track every single work of the officials so that the transparency and accountability making any country strong can be recovered. To fulfill this goal, the help of citizens is one of the key elements. Without the people’s cooperation, this tracker would not function well. Insecurity is another big challenge the Afghan government is tackling every day. It is all because of corruption in the government administrations. There have been many reports leaked from intelligences services that some officials and employees have facilitated terrorist groups to implement their catastrophic actions inside the cities killing innocent people. The report has shown that terrorist groups bribed employees to not report or check their vehicle and what they carry into cities. In other cases, police and soldiers have sold their weapons and ammunitions to Taliban and other insurgent groups because of poverty, low salary and late payment and more importantly lack of tracking and recording of their actions, it has eased this deal, because no soldier will fear being sued or tracked back. If there is a system that always actively track each and every move of these employees and then recording and reporting to their concerned authorities and the people and civil society institutions, the graph of crimes and corruption will incredibly reduce. The Corruption Tracker enables every citizen to be part of the invisible army fighting to eradicate this endemic problem from the government administrations. Poverty is another problem that weakens the government and the people. Lack of development means no jobs and no financial flow into the economy of the country. Thus, people gradually surrender to poverty. According to recent report, Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world whose people are not even able to have access to very basic needs. It is because of corruption which has influenced and covered the entire country’s economic system. Today, a very basic job, for instance, attaining your high school certificate often needs a bride. People in order to get their job done, they need to bear all these problems. Poverty itself is a problem of the country. The local TVs has recently said that Taliban member salaries are higher than the Afghan Army and soldiers. Due to poverty, corruption and lack of transparency in the government, many youth in remote areas prefer being recruited by these groups, which results in further insecurity in country. Lack of security has led to escape of capital and low interest in investments in the country. Thus, a platform that can solve part of the problem in short term is a technological innovation that enable the citizens and clean employees to record, report and chasing corrupted people in the government offices. The Corruption Tracker is an application that has the capability of tracking corruption in an office, government or even in public service institution. It can be a bribery case, stealing or any other discrimination against people’s or bureaucracy in the government. This App will help citizens to have proof of what they have been faced in the proceed of their work. Once they face any type of corruption along their way, they can capture any documentation and report it. These documentations will be reviewed and authenticated based on where they have been sent from and a notification is being sent to the user of successful reporting their case. The Apps will then store and send the documents to relevant administrations. The website is sorting and categorizing these documentations based on their relevancy and gives feedback in the form of graphs displaying which organizations or ministries have been reported the most. The website will generate reports for watchdog groups and organizations fighting corruption in the country. It will also publish the graph and monthly, quarterly and annual reports on its pages for the public. In the report being published, the increase and decrease of corruption is being shown to people and how effectively the use of this Apps was. In version 2.0, the assessment of corruption will be done by relevant administrations and neutral non-government organizations such as civil society, UN agencies and international institutions such as Asia Foundation, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. 1- What's different/interesting about your Startup? This App is able to maintain the anonymity of users’ identity unless specified otherwise. No one can trace a user’s identity to intimidate them or threaten their life. It will give the option to the users to capture any corruption case, document or money serial number to report. The App has been designed for smartphones to confidentially capture videos and photograph of documents and official letters without turning on its screen. Since the administration corruption is of critical issue in the government of Afghanistan, which without bribery or going through corrupted ways, it is impossible to proceed a work, a client is forced to use those ways. Thus,… This platform is an interesting new method of tracking corruption in Afghanistan, before, the citizens had no other way to report a corruption case, however, they witnessed and faced many similar cases while going to an office for an issue. In addition, people would have been forced to go through those corrupted ways, i.e. bribing. This Application will give the people a powerful tool to expose and/or sue any employee or administrations engaging in dishonest actions. Now, there is nothing to track, report and document a corruption in the government, thus, employees fearlessly ask for bribes and delaying the clients works. Another interesting thing about this Application is that is visible to all. People can see the graph of corruption, name of corrupted ministries and administrations who are involved in corruption. It is a user-friendly interface Apps, which allows the client to easily use. All parts have been elegantly developed to give the client a fast tracking and uploading file onto. Additionally, it is designed not only for Afghanistan, but also for other countries in different language. People can choose the language they are fine with. English Language is the default language and Dari and Pashto languages are for Afghanistan. 1. why did you start this company? What excites you about it? I am passionate about this project. Ever since I was in the last year of my undergraduate in Gomal University, I was thinking of an Application that can help my people can use technology in efficient manner. To follow my dream, I first built a school information management system which enables schools to do their administrative tasks. This desktop application is capable of recording, integrating, calculating grades, attendance, financial affairs and progress of student’s performance and tracking by their families. This Application gives the option to families to track of their children activities, attendance, grades, homework and performance. Once this Application is activated, the school administration keeps updating the status of all students and send the report on weekly, monthly and yearly bases. I called this Application “School Tracker” The other Application I am currently working on is “Clean the City”. This Application is good and simple platform for citizens to inform the municipality’s cleanliness department staff of garbage around their living areas. It’s simple and user friendly interface enables anyone with a smartphone to report a garbage that the municipality forgot to clean. It works very simple, by uploading a picture of the area with mentioning the exact location, street and amount of garbage. It will help the government and people to cooperate with each other. Now, I am determined to establish my own startup and follow my goals and dream through this startup. I am trying to find solutions for problems that my country is facing. I am looking for technological solutions which not only ease the process of works, but also it let people learn how to effectively use & communicate with technology in the community. I believe that “Corruption Tracker” will solve a big part of the country’s problems and it helps the people take part in fighting corruption efficiently along with anti-corruption organizations in the country. 2. What makes your team qualify to build out this concept? I chose my Team uniquely. They are initiative-takers, hardworking with great knowledge of Computer Science & a vast background working with national and international organizations. Our team is dynamic, enthusiastic with fresh ideas and high aspiration and passion for change. The team members are as follows: I, Jawid Sarwary, lead the team which is composed of three members with versatile work backgrounds, knowledge of computer science, development economics and other soft skills. I graduated from Gomal University in 2016 in the field of Computer Science concentrating on Software Development. Beside the University subjects, I took some additional courses on CCNA, CCNP, Network Security and MCSE. I am currently working in Afghanistan Development Registry Addressing Service affiliated to Ministry of Interior Affairs. I work as a developer and working on Database called National Information Management System which design, manage, report, store cases and documents of the ministry. The system is going to be replaced with the old system to modernize the police criminal cases and other affairs. In addition, I have been working on Mobile Application Development since 2015. I also have the knowledge of developing and designing websites. Homayoon Sarwari is the graphic designer, photographer and data analyst of the team who has worked in many international organizations such United Nations, Japan International Cooperation Agency and American University of Afghanistan. He is currently pursuing his Bachelor degree at American University of Central Asia, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. He has a vast experience in photography, designing and is a professional translator. Azizullah Azizi is currently working with Net Links Company, Kabul, Afghanistan. He graduated from Gomal University, Pakistan in the field of Computer Science. Azizi has a vast experience in web designing and has knowledge of CCNA and CCNP. He is a language expert and can speak fluently Arabic, French, Urdu and Pashto languages. 3. Describe the problem you are solving? The problem we are solving is sounding the alarm to the invisible yet great societal cost corruption takes on a country. A huge percentage of the world is living under extreme levels of corruption which is shackling an entire new generation unnecessarily. Humanity is ready to experience a world where the common person holds their governing authorities and companies to a new standard of expectations. The growing prevalence of blockchain technologies indicate we are ready for and will soon demand new levels of transparency and accountability the world may have never seen. 4. What is your revenue made or expected revenue model? Each User who subscribes in this Application will bear a small amount of money to pay. Each Case reported will be charged a specific amount of money. The money will be deducted from the user’s mobile credits. The amount is 70 Afghan Currency ( One dollar in USD). This revenue is set to prevent people from disturbing and misusing of this Platform and also help to the sustainability and durability and generating revenues to company. The proceeds from the documents reviews and authentications will be used for staff salaries, development and new set of applications...

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