(MENAFN- The Post)
ROMA – Imagine you are having fun away from home and suddenly the bell rings on your phone. Someone is in your house—a thief, the call tells you.
But this is not a human being calling you! It is a system created by a former student of the National University of Lesotho, Khotso Moahloli. The system is now owned by many happy customers in Maseru, Mafeteng, Thaba Tseka and Mokhotlong.
(Do business with him here on WhatsApp: +266 59417419)
The system keeps calling you and two others until one of you picks a call.
It can detect motion of an intruder in your house and SMS and phone you and two of your friends immediately. It can ring the alarm to alert your neighbours. It can detect smoke if there is fire and then ring you.
It can also be used to remotely put on or off your home lighting and geyser using your cell phone. It can notify you on your cell phone when electricity goes off in your house.
With it, you are at home away from home.
He said when he was in fourth year studying Electronics Engineering they were asked to come up with projects.
“The emphasis was that the final year projects should not only be theoretical but also practical,” he said.
He picked a project named“Remote Control Monitoring” which was to be supervised by Thabo Koetje.
Remote Monitoring is the ability to keep your eye on things even when you are far away from them.
A mix of modern technology and the young bold minds like the ones we have here at NUL is a perfect recipe for such kinds of ventures.
Little did he know that this project was to keep him busy to this day, six years after he walked out of the university's gates.
He began working on the fascinating project. And when he finished, he realised he had something tangible to demonstrate.
“I was now able to use an SMS to put a lightbulb on and off. I also realized that I could now communicate with a lightbulb using a cell-phone wherever I was. Also, the system was able to send me an SMS when it detected motion,” he said.
That was good enough.
After he graduated from the NUL, he was determined to improve his project if not to see it commercialised on the marker.
He then joined a company, NobleX, which was focused on the maintenance of computers and printers.
While working, Moahloli began to save some of his money which he then used to fine-tune his security system.
In the end, NobleX ends up putting its focus on this creation and he becomes a shareholder in the company.
With enough attention given to the project, the system is now able to do the following.
Suppose an intruder enters your house in your absence. It detects his motions, sends you an SMS and calls you immediately.
You, the owner of the house, are on the first line to receive the call. It rings you for some time and if you don't answer, it moves to the second person whose numbers are registered. If they don't pick, it moves to the third person. If that person doesn't answer, it comes back to you, again.
“In fact, it keeps circling between the three of you and it doesn't stop unless one of you picks the call,” Moahloli said.
If you are away from home for whatever reason, you can put your home lights on and off as if you were actually at home.
In fact, this system gives you peace of mind by confirming that if you put the lights on, they indeed became on by providing a feedback. It also assists with putting a geyser on and off remotely as well as detecting signs of fire by detecting smoke and ringing you and alarming neighbours.
To test it, the system was installed in one of the team members' houses and the results were perfect.
Now it is time to get it to the market.
Today's youth are no longer satisfied with“demonstration projects.”
They mean business.
As they plot the way forward, an opportunity came by, uninvited. It was in the form of the Bacha Entrepreneurship Project, a project spearheaded by the Basotho Enterprises Development Corporation (BEDCO), Standard Lesotho Bank and Lesotho Revenue Authority (LRA).
Moahloli and his team applied for funding but lost. But they never gave up hope. The following year, they tried their luck again, presenting a better proposal this time.
To their surprise, the team won and were named second best among the winners, pocketing a whopping M168 000 in prize money.
The funding has made it possible for Moahloli and his team to produce in bulk and to enter the security market. They are now in four districts of Lesotho and hope to expand.
Own Correspondent
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