When Information Is Power

As co-founders of South Africa's favorite load shedding app, Dan Southwood-Wells and Herman Maritz alert people about rampant power cuts so they can better plan their lives.

- CHANEL RETIEF

THE PHONE GOES PING! AND THEN THE customary alert, that the country is going in to Stage 3 or Stage 4 or even Stage 6 ‘load shedding’ – the infamous word to describe rotating power cuts in South Africa.

Every South African, every single South African, can relate to the train of thoughts and tidal wave of emotions – anger, frustration, helplessness, even depression – that succeed the moment they know they will be hit by load shedding.

The subscribers of load shedding app, EskomSePush, are perhaps better informed, and prepared, for the scheduled power cuts – or the hours that they will be plunged in darkness – thanks to the notifications on the app.

It was “just another day in the office” when Dan Southwood-Wells and Herman Maritz, the founders of EskomSePush, called “the best load shedding app”, had their epiphany for it.

“Dan and I were working together at a banking company building apps for banks,” Maritz opens. “We were building push notifications (automated messages sent by an application to a user when the application is not open) and this was in 2014.

“Then the power just went off! We were unsure if we should just stay or go home because we did not know if this was load shedding, and what stage it was,” Maritz laughs.

Adds Southwood-Wells: “In 2014, or the beginning of 2015, there was that saying going around that was like ‘is there an app for [load shedding]?’ And we thought, ‘hey, there isn’t an app for it’, and we know a little bit about app development.”

This soon became a “side hustle” for the two gentlemen who officially launched it in 2015, and garnered about 250,000 users.