Duke students create Android app SMSmart

If you’re tired of relying on spotty wifi or paying for a few extra megabytes of data, SMSmart may be the app you need.

Seniors Alan Ni, Ben Schwab and Jay Wang have designed a mobile application for people who are concerned about their data usage. SMSmart uses texts instead of data to search for directions, locations, stocks and more.

“SMSmart is an app for people who are data-conscious or potentially people in countries with limited access to high-speed data," senior Ben Schwab said. "It lets you access information on the Internet via SMS instead of your traditional 4G data."

The company's mission, similar to Google’s Project Loon and Internet.org, is to help provide universal Internet access.

The idea for the app came while they were studying abroad and had text messaging but no data plans as they traveled around. As computer science majors, the three of them had a basic understanding of how application program interfaces and mobile apps worked.

The concept materialized last summer when the trio lived in Silicon Valley while participating in the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Fellowship Program, Wang said.

The prototype for SMSmart was built at a hackathon for LinkedIn, similar to HackDuke, Schwab said. The team presented the idea at a pitch competition and were one of four teams to be selected for an award, motivating them to continue working on the project.

“This was the validation that maybe this was something worth trying out,” Wang said.