Mosquitos bugging you, there’s an app for that

A team of engineers and students from the University of Manitoba are doing their part to help fight the onslaught of mosquitoes in Winnipeg. And you can help, too.

Bob McLeod, who teaches computer system modelling in the Faculty of Engineering, says a new app created for iPhone and Android can monitor the numbers of mosquitoes in our area, helping to identify problem spots in need attention. The app, called “M Tracker,” allows users to note how bad mosquitoes are in a specific neighbourhood and generate a map of Winnipeg from the results.

“We originally had been using software to generate contact patterns to model the spread of flu and flu-like symptoms in hospitals several years ago, and realized the same technology could be used to track mosquitoes,” says McLeod. His computer engineering students Chen Liu and Rory Jacob designed the app, which went live in 2013.

“We’re starting to get enough data for meaningful results,” he says.

The free app can be downloaded from iTunes and Google Store:

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mosquito-tracker/id657544876?ls=1&mt=8

Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chem.app.moskitotracker

This story originally appeared in June 2013.