Brief - The Hustle

Mogadishu is hitting the streets with a new hog-hailing app

Written by Wes Schlagenhauf | Jun 30, 2020 9:27:57 AM

Disclaimer: While an on-demand swine-hailing service would be very chill, we’re not talking Porky Pig. We’re talking street-legal road-hogs, babayyy.

The Go! app, a new Uber-style taxi app for motorcycles, launched in Somalia’s capital of Mogadishu yesterday to help curb commuter headaches in the city’s rustlin’ bustlin’ transport sector.

Per Quartz, the platform was launched by Gulivery, a delivery startup that provides 3rd party door-to-door services, making it the first “moto-taxi” service of its kind in the Horn of Africa region.

More like ‘motordishu’

The increase in digital transportation options comes as more Somali citizens flock back into the country after decades of war.

The influx has led to increased traffic in Mogadishu, which has almost 3m people.

Boda bodas to the rescue

Motorcycle taxis (AKA moto or boda bodas) have ruled the streets in recent years. Now, Go! is trying to capitalize on the whitespace between the elbow-to-elbow tuk-tuk traffic, and bring order to the city’s free-for-all transit system.

Somalia’s budding tech-onomy is having a moment

The country opened its first tech hub in 2017, and since then, e-commerce services have thrived — this despite the fact that Somalian internet use remains low, and weak government regulatory policies continue to cause problems for the work of businesses big and small.

If all goes well, Go!’s founder, Deeq Mohamed, hopes to cruise into more Somalian cities and other African regions in the future — Somalis, start your engines.