No more floods with Arko

MANILA, Philippines - One of the worst things that could ruin a person’s day is going through floods and Metro Manila’s flood problem is nothing short of disastrous every time it rains. In recent years, the intensity of monsoon rains and typhoons have been gradually increasing, resulting in floods that also vary in depth and also depending on location. Some areas quickly get flooded even at the slightest amount of rain while other areas have lingering floods long after the rains have stopped. Often, people get trapped in certain places and could not go anywhere.

And while it seems things can get worse with the changing climate, people can turn now turn to technology for adaptation. The last couple of years have seen several mobile phone-based applications that provide real-time weather information. Some of these have developed to become go-to-tools for rain prediction and sometimes flood monitoring.

App against floods

One such application is called Arko, an application developed by a small team of mobile software engineers at business process provider Pointwest Technologies Corp. Arko, which references Noah’s Ark is among the primary mobile device software that was incorporated into the coincidentally named MOSES (Monitoring and Operating System for Emergency Services), a tablet device launched in 2013 that is targeted at disaster mitigation coordinators in local government units. MOSES was started under the Department of Science and Technology’s (DOST) Project NOAH (Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards), which monitors and assesses disaster-prone areas using weather and flood mapping tools.

Arko is basically an easy-to-view application of flood maps and rain forecast data, which are fed by NOAH’s real-time updates. The data is overlain on Google Maps and users can identify what areas would potentially experience rain and floods. Not only that, the app can also show the amount of rainfall and the severity of floods in specific areas, allowing users to plan their travels ahead.

It is interesting to note that Arko predates MOSES. The app was initially released for free through Google Play Store service on Android-based devices even before MOSES was conceptualised.

The application has since been downloaded over 10,000 times. It’s been so successful that it landed as one of the nominees in the 2014 World Summit Award Mobile Content, one of the only five Filipino-made applications that made it to the contest.

Public service

The information that users get through Arko is invaluable. Even if its not intended for commercial use, businesses can use the information derived from Arko – and essentially NOAH – to know key areas that must be avoided due to flooding. The application and the information are free and it has a higher purpose other than for commercial use. For a company such as Pointwest Technologies, offering something for free could be peculiar and unexpected to note.  

“The company considers it as our corporate social responsibility and one that we will continue to do,” according to Raymond Posadas, a member of Pointwest Technologies’ Mobile Development Group.

“Arko is in itself a learning platform for us because we were discovering a lot of things that we wouldn’t have learned from just developing enterprise-level mobile applications.”

Posadas, who goes with an enviable position of being the company’s ‘Mobile Evangelist,’ sort of the fanatical advocate for mobile technology, says that when Arko was first developed, it was intended to be a testing ground for the company’s ability to come up with mobile applications targeted at a very unique market.

“We used it to learn more about where our skills can be used in the mobile development space. We know consumers are very picky with the apps they use and they want it easy. So we made sure the interface improves the user’s experience and from there, we can make adjustments to people’s needs through updates to the application.”

Learning lessons

According to John Aguada, Team Lead for the Mobile Development Group, Arko wasn’t their first application; they have previously developed an application called MMFA or Metro Manila Flood Alerts, which also had similar but basic functions as Arko, and was launched even before Project NOAH came to existence in 2012. Eventually, they got in touch with Dr. Mahar Lagmay, Project NOAH’s Executive Director, to participate in building applications that utilizes NOAH data.

“It was a unique experience for us because we’re used to making enterprise applications. In those environments, we had better control over the data because the server and PC-based applications are also made by us. With Arko, we had to review NOAH’s data sets, interpret them, then create an interface that must be easy for the average user,” Aguada says. He adds that compared to enterprise users who must be trained to use more complex applications, the much larger consumer market are less patient with their applications if they crash.

He cites that during the onslaught of typhoon ‘Glenda,’ the Pointwest team has to constantly and immediately adjust their software to accommodate data changes. 

“We realized that consumers can be unforgiving, even if they were getting the service for free. But the lessons we learned there are also being incorporated into our enterprise application development; we have to be fast and accurate with our service to the public and this will be reflected with our enterprise customers,” Aguada says.

The seven-man Mobile Development Group seems to be small, but it is already among the most important departments of Pointwest Technologies. The company has already realized the potential that this team could have on its overall business offerings. However, the company has promised to leave the team with as much creative freedom in coming out with new, consumer-level applications.

“The benefits that we get from doing this for the public at large will have profound effects on our overall experience as application developers. It is integral to our work and what we can do now is to keep creating more,” Aguada says.