BHC is a company based in Mons (Wallonia) that recently developed a management application for entrepreneurs. This app drew the attention of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in relation with the NGO’s efforts aiming at the preservation of an endangered park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

BHC is a company that provides IT services and products in order to meet corporate needs. It recently developed an application that enables independent workers and SME directors to manage their warehouse stock without using the Internet. This software, called Odoo, drew the attention of the WWF for the management of the Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Indeed, the park is highly important to the local population, as they illegally extract from it the Makala, a kind of coal that comes from the trees of the park. WWF implemented ECOMakala to develop agroforestry and the production of sustainable charcoal in the Virunga national park. This project, launched in 2007, has a two-fold objective: to plant fast-growing trees outside of the Virunga park in order to reduce the cutting rate in the park and increase the wages of the farmers that process the trees.  WWF incites the Congolese farmers in the region of Goma to become tree planters in order to obtain a legal and sustainable Makala. This is a financial and human investment with major long-term benefits.

Unfortunately, such an implementation requires an enormous logistical support, and WWF had not realized the amount of work that it would represent. That’s where BHC comes into play. The company from Mons created an app to manage different criteria at the same time and without using the Internet. Given the nature of the project and the technical constraints, it’s important to understand the required criteria: management of flora and fauna, cartography of a site of over 6000 acres, Online or Offline mobile application and simplified use.

BHC therefore chose to create a management software tool, OpenSource Odoo, in order to use the framework to develop the application.

The cooperation is still in its initial stage but has great days ahead of it … A story to be