Carl Marks, who was born and bred in Mitchell’s Plain, and his big brother Matthew Marks have created an app to house the community’s water saving content.
Carl, 31, from Eastridge started working on the CT Drought Info app in 2017. It went live this month and is available for free from the Google Play Store. Work is ongoing to make it available in the Apple App Store.
Last week the app was trending at number 4 in the Google Play Store.
Parents Lena and Matthew Marks have always encouraged their boys to be the best and do their best. “When I was little I would take apart my toy cars or my play station to see what is inside and what fits where. Since then, I’ve always been interested in technology,” said Carl.
Carl has attended Littlewood Primary school, Beacon Hill High and then studied at the College of Cape Town in 2007.
“I studied Business Management because the line was shorter than the line for Information Technology (IT) on the day I went for registration,” he quipped.
“I am very glad I choose Business, as it helped me with my IT and also creating this app.”
“This app has been created to provide as much information as possible pertaining to Cape Town’s water crisis on one platform so that people won’t have to be inconvenienced by searching for their relevant information on the web,” said Carl.
“We are not stopping there, we are planning to launch many apps which speak to various industries, creating centralised platforms for information access,” said Carl.
Information for the app is sourced from the City of Cape Town, Green Cape and Rand Water. A radio station focus on water will soon be launched on the app.
Matthew, 41, who lives in Steenberg, added: “Helping the community is what we want to do with this app. It is also to empower them to face the drought and prevent Day Zero from taking place. There are various surveys and competitions for the users to interact on a regular basis.”
They held their app’s launch at Beacon Hill on Saturday May 5. “This venue has a huge significance to us as we are former students and Beacon Hill provided us with that foundation for learning and bringing it back home to our community in Mitchell’s Plain,” said Carl.
