App helps laowai get driver's license

Thanks to Kosheliev Oleksandr, an overseas student from Ukraine, more foreigners living in China have found it easier to get a driving license.

At the beginning of this year, along with his Ukrainian friends, Oleksandr developed an app, named Chinese Drivers License Laowai, to provide a question bank for the theory section of China’s driving test in eight languages — English, Russian, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish and Arabic.

The app became an instant hit and has helped more than 2,000 foreigners pass the test so far.

Oleksandr came up with the idea when he was preparing for the test in 2016.

“If foreigners have a driving license from their own country, they can apply for the Chinese license as long as they pass the theory test,” he said.

He found that most reference books were written in Chinese. “The question bank in Russian was incomplete and filled with errors,” he said.

After three years, his idea took root in Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong Province. He said it is deeply gratifying whenever an app user sends him a photo of their newly obtained license.

“Passed with a score of 98, excellent app, questions are exactly the same as the actual exam!” app user Daven from Grenada told Oleksandr.

“Instead of how many downloads we’ve got, I care more about users’ comments, which make me feel that I really helped them,” he said.

“It’s a great app! I’m preparing for my driving license test. I’m quite confident about it thanks to this app,” another user commented.

As car-sharing services are burgeoning in China, Oleksandr, with a driving license in hand, finds it more convenient to move around.

The ever-changing lifestyle and technology in China are pushing Oleksandr to further improve his app.

“We plan to make it possible for users to use WeChat Pay and Alipay,” he said, adding that other services, such as car sharing, will also possibly become available as well.