Usizame is a free SMS-based ferry check-in and alert system designed to help prevent marine accidents in Tanzania. The system will also include an early warning system about bad weather conditions so that people can choose whether they want to travel on a particular boat or day. Tanzania has witnessed one of the worst maritime accidents over the last couple of decades. In 1996, MV Bukoba sank killing over 1000 people. MV Spice Islander sank in 2011 killing 200 people followed MV Skagit this month that left over 70 passengers dead and others missing. Rachel Hamada, the founder of Usizame, spoke to Global Voices Online about Usizame initiative. Ndesanjo Macha (NM): Can you briefly tell us about yourself? Rachel Hamada (RH): I am an experienced journalist and the founder of Mambo magazine, the online magazine for Zanzibar. I moved to Zanzibar in 2008 with my husband, who is from the island of Unguja (the larger island of the Zanzibar archipelago) and our daughter – though I have been coming and going from the island since about 2001. Originally, I am from the UK and have worked in the fields of travel, politics, culture, business and technology journalism. Founder of Usizame – Rachel Hamada. Photo courtesy of Rachel Hamada. NM: What is Usizame? RH: Usizame is Kiswahili for ‘don't drown’. The system is a prototype that allows ferry passengers traveling between Zanzibar (including Pemba) and Dar Es Salaam to check onto their boat via free SMS. The idea is to relate passenger counts to boat capacities so that an alert can be triggered in the case of a boat being overloaded. The system will also establish a digital passenger manifest for each boat, warn passengers about severe weather conditions or that they are traveling on a deregistered boat, and will also include an early warning system in the case of an actual disaster. NM: How did the idea come up? RH: My husband's mother and niece, Bi Tatu and Asha, were on the MV Skagit, which capsized on Wednesday 18 July. They were traveling back from Morogoro on the mainland via Dar Es Salaam. They were supposed to travel the week before, but were delayed in Zanzibar by a family funeral. So as it happened, they had the bad luck to be on the wrong boat at the wrong time. The MV Skagit was over its capacity, was anyway not designed to travel in open ocean over such a distance and sailed in rough seas despite a warning from the Tanzanian Meteorological Agency. The boat capsized and rescue efforts were thwarted by bad weather and petty problems such as lack of fuel at the port for rescue boats. As a result, not many bodies were recovered and those such as us have to deal with the fact that our loved ones cannot even be buried. This tragedy followed on from the MV Spice Islander disaster last September, in which some 200 people were confirmed dead but over 1,300 missing – making this, I believe, one of the worst maritime disasters of this century globally. I was trying to think of a practical way to stop these disasters from ever happening again – and was coming up with the tired old chestnut of lobbying government, when a friend of mine with a tech background, Mbwana Alliy, suggested a different angle of approach. This was to look at the issue from the bottom up and find a way to protect passengers without, at least in the early stages, involving any authorities and bureaucracy that might slow things down. We want to harness the momentum of the tragedy positively to engage passengers and ensure take-up of the system early on is high. So we are working on a rough pilot system that we will test and hone over time, but that can be launched quickly. Down the line it may well be that we work more closely with mobile operators and Tanzanian authorities. Usizame logo. Image courtesy of usizame.org NM: Can you give our readers a bit of background to boat accidents in Tanzania in recent years? RH: As I mentioned, within the last year, there have been two major marine disasters near Zanzibar (and a good number of small ones also). This is against a background of other tragedies on Zanzibar and the mainland, such as the Gongo La Mboto bomb blasts, with a feeling that life is cheap, despite the cost of living being very high now in Tanzania. The Citizen newspaper today led on a story headlined “Disasters are killing TZ minds and souls,” which highlights the psychological damage that such recurring disasters can incur. In terms of boat disasters specifically, Tanzania also saw the horrendous sinking of MV Bukoba on Lake Victoria – with some 1000 passengers reported as having drowned. Tanzania has few if any rivals for numbers of boat deaths over the last couple of decades.