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“The primary concern in a crisis has to be public safety,” remarks SMSPortal MD Charles Stretch. “By enabling universities to communicate critical information with their staff and students directly on their cellphones, they can ensure public safety and reduce misinformation circulating."
SMSPortal has had many NMMU and UCT computer science students enter its software development internship program and founders James Pearce and Charles Stretch are both NMMU Alumni as well as the recipients of the Alumni Rising Star Awards in 2013.
"We were students once," adds Stretch, "and we know students don't want to waste valuable money going online to find out the current situation. Using SMS cuts out expensive data charges and puts the right information into the right hands at the right time. A necessity during the current fees must fall crisis."
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NMMU is committed to concluding its academic year with students continuing to receive faculty-specific plans, and support material and the donation of 500,000 SMSs to the institution will go a long way in achieving its goal.
Charles Stretch and James Pearce received an NMMU Alumni Rising Star award in 2013 after their small Mill Park bulk sms service provider business grew into a R300-million annual turnover operating in 160 countries with connection to 750 cellphone network worldwide. The pair graduated with a BCom degree and a BSc in Computer Science respectively.