TUTEH launches TRes, a digital platform for student accommodation

Tshwane University of Technology has, at the beginning of each year, been facing challenges with long queues of students seeking accommodation. At times, some of these students slept on the streets, with many of them being taken advantage of by criminals. TUTEH CEO Nicholas Motsatse says TRes is a digital platform built to enhance the quality of life for students in student accommodation while providing appropriate tools and support to accommodation providers.

“The design and functionality of the platform aim to create on-going interaction between students, accommodation providers and university administrators in a spirit of cooperation and mutual respect. Each of the participants must always feel like their voice is heard. The core idea behind TRes is that student accommodation is not only big business, but it is also more importantly about human dignity. It is about the totality of the experience of being a university student. It is one of the critical contributory factors to student performance,” said Motsatse.

Through an alliance with TUT’s Faculty of Information Communication Technology (FoICT), TUTEH recruited a team of recently graduated technology students who were part of FoICT’s Informatics Community Engagement Programme (ICEP) and gave them the responsibility to lead the development of TRes. Supported by Amazon Web Services (AWS), through a collaboration arrangement, and by Agile 42, a specialist project management firm, the team, in adopting a modular approach, will continue adding features that further add value to the platform.

One of the features is that students are now able to rate the quality of their accommodation daily, which then translates into the prominent display of those highly rated residences on the landing page of TRes.