WaitKnowMore Queue App is Not New but Won in the Startup Weekend Cebu

Team WaitKnowMore was a runaway winner in the recently concluded Startup Weekend Cebu for coming up with a solution “that can change people’s lives”.

The 10-man team came up with an application concept that uses SMS for queue management that would replace the long wait and standing in a long line for a queue when paying bills. Check the video below that shows the presentations of the individual team during the Startup Weekend Cebu at the University of the Philippines Conference Hall.

However, the idea of having a SMS for queue management is not new at all. When you google the related keywords you’ll find out similar applications that are already working. Take for example the QLess Mobile Queuing Solution that offers to send SMS or even calls the user if his turn is already about to be called.

Few years ago, Smart Communication had an inter-school competition for tech-inventions where one of the winners introduced a prototype of a gadget that worked as a queue management system employing SMS similar to the idea presented by WaitKnowMore and the QLess Mobile app.

It was in 2010, at the 6th SWEEP (Smart Wireless Engineering Education Program) Innovation and Excellence Awards where a team from the Ateneo de Zamboanga University presented a working model for their device–TimeFree that was initially designed to maximize the time of their students during tuition payment periods. SMS was also used in alerting the students once their queue is about to arrive while doing other things elsewhere.

I am not aware if the organizers of the Startup Weekend Cebu required the ideas to be original or not. The WaitKnowMore team received prizes for their proposed application and even won an incorporation as a company in the United Kingdom.

The team led by Janessa Padin came out with the idea for the app as she observed “people really hate to be kept waiting in lines”. Janessa’s 10-man team includes Kaom Te, George Padin, Cedric Santos Jr., Lance Quejada, Dandeljane Maraat, Cyrus Rufino, Kristian Jacob Abad Lora, Wesley Chiongbian, and Jason Coppage.

The team bested 17 other teams that joined the grueling 54-hour competition for developers, designers, marketers, technopreneurs, and venture capitalists for the purpose of coming out ideas which will be put forward into business that can help change lives.