Somjot, a mobile parking application which helps vehicle owners find parking spaces, will be released early this year after the initiative was announced as a winner in the SmartStart Young Innovator Program, one of the firm’s co-founders said on Sunday.
The mobile parking app start-up was selected as the winner of SmartStart Young Innovator Program Cycle 2, organised by mobile telecom operator Smart Axiata, at Impact Hub Phnom Penh.
SomJot co-founder Ny Chanpichmean on Sunday said the app will be released early this year and expressed his hope that it will benefit vehicle users in more quickly locating parking spaces.
She said the app’s administrators – referring to the owners of parking spaces using the app – can control vehicle parking statistics and more easily manage their cash.
“As we are in the technology era, we want to revolutionise the way people park, changing from the traditional way – dependent on tickets – to an application,” said the 22-year-old Chanpichmean. “I think it is a large scale business. It will be the first app in Cambodia for parking using technology.”
SomJot currently does not have a partnership with any parking spaces as the team remains in the stage of introducing the concept to relevant parties.
Chanpichmean said SomJot will approach parking spaces at education institutions and at markets to connect them with the platform and will try to expand partnerships with other locations in the near future.
She said several parking space owners have expressed their interest in the business concept and confirmed that the locally created-app will ease the way they do business. Payment is expected in cash in the beginning, but the founders aim to implement e-payment later.
SomJot was among four other teams in the SmartStart Young Innovator Program Cycle 2 final stage of the competition. Last June, SomJot and four others teams received $4,000 and a six-month incubator programme with Impact Hub and battled it out last Thursday at Impact Hub Phnom Penh.
SomJot was selected as the winner and awarded a fully-funded Singapore “tech trip” to visit the likes of Facebook, Google and Microsoft.
Smart Axiata’s CEO Thomas Hundt said in the release that SomJot’s initiative proves that the Kingdom’s startup ecosystem is growing and being stimulated by great talent.
“It’s a positive sign for our shared vision of Cambodia’s sustained digital economy,” he said.
