Computer science student develops app to beat the darkness. Picture: Supplied
Cape Town - A computer science student at Stellenbosch University is bringing power to your fingertips to stay ahead of power outages by creating an open-source software project that allows you to import load-shedding schedules from Eskom directly to your calendar.
Scraping off information from Eskom's official Twitter account to make provision for those sudden surprises, Boyd Kane developed Eskom-Calendar, software that turns raw data into a machine-friendly format that allows you to customise notifications on your phone so that you may know in advance when your power will go off.
Inspired by the magical aspect of programming, Kane said that despite the time-consuming effort of cleaning up the raw data, he realised that load shedding would not go away, so he bit the bullet and pushed to build the initial version of the project.
“I set up the project such that once you specify the load-shedding schedule in a file and save that file to the cloud, then a suite of automated steps will kick off. These automated steps read in the new schedule, calculate the new calendars based on that schedule, and then make those calendars available online so that the subscribers will see the new schedule in their calendars. All I have to do is enter in the new schedule, hit ‘confirm changes’, and then about six minutes later the new schedules are in everyone’s calendars.
“Currently there is a small army of load-shedding apps and tools, but I use my digital calendar for just about everything, and none of the apps had a calendar option. So this meant that I often got caught out in the dark while planning my day, because I had forgotten to check the app. So first and foremost was to allow users to have load shedding in their calendar, but the complementary goal was to make it open-source.
“For the everyday user who just wants to know when their lights will be off, the project solves that without fuss. You’ll only get an event in your calendar if Eskom has declared load shedding and your area has load shedding scheduled. No more ‘Eskom’s declared load shedding from 10.30 and I’ve got load shedding from 10am to 12.30, so my lights will be off from 10.30 to 12.30’. This project makes it simple for you to plan your day and your week by just looking at your calendar,” said Kane.
With just over 500 municipal areas supported by the project, one user, Ben Valkin, said that the biggest challenge being tackled by the Eskom-Calendar app is the lack of an existing data set that software developers can use to build better load-shedding apps
“Most load-shedding data is published on separate municipal websites in the form of PDFs and spreadsheets, which isn’t centralised and not very easy to work with. My thoughts are that it has the potential to provide a lot of advantages over existing applications. It not only benefits people looking to add load-shedding times to their calendar apps, which is a completely unique feature, but it’s also useful for other software developers like myself looking to make better load-shedding trackers and calendars. It’s open-source and easy to work with, and there isn’t really a decent and accessible data source elsewhere. It’s also really cool how it automatically updates based on Eskom’s Twitter feed,” said Valkin.
Describing the other benefits of the project, Kane said that the application is great for team managers to subscribe to the calendars of their team members so that they may know when they won't have power and plan team meetings around that.
“Looking towards the future, I'm talking with other developers about integrating with Microsoft Teams, Slack and Telegram so that a bot can automatically send load-shedding updates, or inform your team members when you lose power. We’re also busy getting an official website up and running to make it easier for new users to find their calendar,” said Kane.
You can find the app by going to Eskom Calendar. It will take you to a page with instructions about how to subscribe to your area. You can customise the notifications so that your phone will let you know in advance when your power will go off. Once you’ve subscribed, you will never need to touch it again.
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