In contact on the go!

One fine day, Arusha Imtiaz went to school to pick up her 3-year-old nephew. On their way back, she asked her nephew how was his day at school and what did he do there? The child was unable to explain anything in detail. At this Imtiaz realised that people knew everything about what was going at the political front, in sports and in many other fields of life but had no idea what their children were up to at school. In her opinion, there was a big disconnect among the teachers, parents, and children, something that might lead to the worsening of performance of students at school.

"Though facebook, twitter, etc, have given people opportunities to connect with each other, these are not ideal for useful communication between parents, teachers, and children," says Imtiaz. "Quite often, one has to wait for parent-teacher meetings, which are no match to real-time communication," she adds.

With an aim to address this issue and to cater to the demand of an interactive platform, she along with her fellow team members, ultimately developed an app called, SMAC Factory. SMAC here stands for technologies such as Social, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud.

With the help of this platform, parents and teachers will be able to see the schedule of homework, events, news, attendance, results, books and even bus-tracking display in real time. Besides, the app allows parents and teachers to comment on posts, set reminders and mark digital signatures.

Imtiaz shares it with TNS that they have recently signed an MoU with the City District Government Lahore (CDGL) which has around 1200 schools. Besides, she says, they have clients in Dubai. As a new company, she says, they are looking for potential clients all over the world as this issue exists everywhere. The revenue model, Imtiaz describes, is that the schools will pay them for using the service. "Whether they bear the cost themselves or pass it on to parents is up to them," she concludes.