A digital start-up company, Price Check Swaziland, has launched five mobile applications with the partnership of Limkokwing University, Swazi MTN and PMT.
The mobile applications, called Price Check, the Add app, Swaziland Tourism app, School Check app and eLift, were the brainchild of Price Check Swaziland, owned by Limkokwing University’s alumni Carrington Stewart. Carrington is an Associate Degree in Business Management graduate, who graduated from the University in 2015. Price Check Swaziland, who developed these mobile platforms with MacknTech Technologies, launched the five mobile applications on 18 November 2016 at the Limkokwing University Multi-Purpose Hall.
According to Carrington, his company decided to develop the mobile apps to leverage on the widespread usage of mobile technology in the country. “The development emanated on the basis that mobile phones have increasingly become the best companions for almost everybody, everywhere and anytime. We have just decided to make your friend, the phone, to be more productive,” he said.
About the apps, Carrington said that Price Check is a price comparison platform for consumers and is also a marketing platform for companies in Swaziland. The app would cover many sectors including retail, hardware, automotive, pharmaceuticals and agriculture. “All you have to do is log in the platform, enter the details as requested, enter your preferred items and then be able to compare prices on the platform from different service providers, and then choose the deal,” he said.
The Add app is for businesses to view prices of the different media houses. The Swaziland Tourism app is a platform that tourists coming to the country could use to book hotels, view the country’s heritage and the different available attractions. The School Check app would allow pupils to apply to different schools using their mobile devices. The last app, the eLift, is a ride sharing app that will enable people to make money using their cars to cash in.
For now, these apps are only available in Swaziland, but Carrington said that his company is thinking of going across the border very soon as they are targeting the markets of South Africa and Mozambique.
Limkokwing University hoped that these apps will enable Swazi youths to become independent and to get started on becoming entrepreneurs. Limkokwing Senior Manager Government and Industry Liaison Nkhlosilenhle Masuku congratulated the former student and further pledged the University’s continued support to the company. “We also request companies to use the services of the company as we move towards the first World status. We hope that 10 years down the line we will come back here to say this is where it started,” he said.
Limkokwing Business Faculty lecturer Tfobile Gumedze said they would always be indebted to industry partners for supporting what the University stood for, which was to empower students using practical approach to their modules through assistance from the industry. “We are starting to realise the impact we are making both in the local and global economy,” she said.