Applatch funds children’s school when users lock addictive apps

Have you ever wished you could stay away from your phone longer than you can now?

Don’t worry, you’re not the only one.

These days, it’s nearly impossible for the average smartphone user to focus on work or studies without the urge to be connected to their phones, making such a powerful tool an even more powerful distraction.

On a global scale, research shows that 75.4% of smartphone users experience the irrational fear of being without their smartphones, scientifically known as “Nomophobia”.

Fighting this battle is what led Opaleye Olabamiji Samson and Bolakale Mallick to found Applatch, a mobile app that helps you be more productive and maintain healthy mental health by locking addictive apps on your phone for a period of time while prolonging the battle for social media addiction to a brilliant cause – helping an African child in need through school.

Applatch CEO Opaleye Olabamiji Samson and COO Bolakale Mallick decided to design the product as a true solution to fight the app addiction problem; something they had personally experienced.

This challenge led the two friends and co-founders to engage the third co-founder and CTO Adekola Akano, an expert in developing Android and iOS mobile apps for startups in various industries.

“How does Applatch work?” You might be wondering.

“Can’t I just unlock the apps I get enough of?”.

With Applatch, it’s not really that simple.

Applatch’s MVP currently has 3 locking features; ‘Lock now’, ‘Lock by daily limit’ and ‘Schedule Lock’. You are also expected to select an accountability partner who will grant you permission by providing you with a code to pause or end the currently locked session.

Users who want to immediately lock distracting apps for a period of time use the “Lock Now” feature. A user using ‘Lock with daily limit’ wants a specific app or set of distracting apps to be locked after using it for a certain specific number of hours per day, for example you want Snapchat to be locked after using it for 2 hours in one day, then your daily limit will be 2 hours and you will no longer have access to it for the rest of the day.

If you’re big on productivity and you live a routine life, you’ll probably use the ‘Schedule Lock’ feature more, it allows you to schedule lock sessions into the future and you can set the day and time a lock session should start and quit, you can decide to repeat the session every day or choose a few days a week if that’s your preference.

Applatch has a feature that allows the user to track total analysis of phone usage, showing the total number of times you unlock the phone, average daily screen time, the apps you spend the most time on and show the average duration, as well as the time of day you spend the most time on a particular app.

Now the best part is, “how does this get a kid through school?”

Applatch would connect users’ efforts to a child in need, recognizing them as beneficiaries.

Each time a user completes a locked session without pausing it or ending the session before the allotted time, the beneficiary associated with the user’s account will receive more funds to continue their studies.

While the vision of CEO Samson Opaleye is to ensure that a minimum of 500 African children work to ensure that every child on their social purpose program will be funded through school, from primary to secondary education regardless of whether the users complete their sessions or not, they want that users should be part of the journey as they improve their productivity and mental health.

The funds required for the tuition of the program’s beneficiaries will be received as grants from foundations and organizations that are big on quality education for all and healthy mental health that are willing to be a part of this impactful social cause.

The team at Applatch has partnered with LAHAfrica (Lend a Hand for Africa), an experienced NGO to implement the program for social purposes. They help search for recipients and carry out the processes involved to ensure that confirmed recipients are admitted to a great school and provided with a quality education, all paid for with the grants received from foundations in partnership with Applatch.

Applatch is currently only available here on the Google Play Store for now, but it will be available on iOS in the near future. You can follow Applatch’s journey by checking out their social media @getapplatch or visiting their website www.applatch.com