(1888PressRelease)
January 03, 2008 - Entrepreneur Stephen Clarke, Managing Director of Birmingham-based Truancy Call Ltd (www.truancycall.com), has scooped a top award at The BT Business Essence of the Entrepreneur Awards 2007. Competing against hundreds of small businesses from across the UK, Stephen was awarded this highly-acclaimed recognition for his exceptional dedication and development of Truancy Call’s range of telecommunications services for the UK education sector.
Truancy Call is an automatic parent notification system which allows school staff to implement first-day contact with parents of absentees via email, SMS text and voice calling. Stephen was inspired to produce the service in December 2000 after reading a news article about two primary school children that went missing after not arriving at school that morning. Since its inception, the service has grown and is now used in over 800 UK schools and 50 schools in Australia.
Truancy Call also provides a plethora of other telecommunications solutions including Text Someone, Call Parents, e-mentoring and Term Time Tracker. Call Parents and is another automatic parent notification system which allowing schools to contact parents by automated phone call, SMS and email. Text Someone encourages pupils to report incidents of bullying using SMS technology. E-mentoring allows students to have 24/7 contact with a ‘mentor’ about their work via SMS, WAP, forum, or web site. Term Time Tracker enables Local Authorities (LAs) and schools to monitor term-time absences with SMS technology. Truancy Call Ltd also provides the Healthcare sector with Remind Patients – an automated notification system to contact patients via SMS to confirm, cancel or change appointments.
A panel of judges, including successful entrepreneurs and industry experts, commented on Truancy Call Ltd: “A major concern for all parents is that their children are given the best education possible. Truancy Call provide an excellent service, which allows parents to keep in touch with teachers, so they know if there are any problems at school.”
To visualise Stephen’s and the other entrepreneurs’ success, celebrated photographer Perou captured the essence of their business in a series of photographs. Stephen’s photo sees him imitating a stereotypical truanting student; hiding behind the bike sheds smoking a cigarette!
Stephen Clarke, Managing Director, Truancy Call Ltd, enthused, “It is such a great achievement to be recognised as a top entrepreneur by such a prestigious organisation as BT. The implementation of our services has really made an impact in schools nationwide so achieving this award is a testament not only to myself, but to all those involved in designing such innovative services.”
Now in its second year, The BT Essence of the Entrepreneur competition celebrates the achievements of small businesses that have demonstrated exceptional dedication and have found new directions to succeed in business with the help of technology.
For more information about Truancy Call please contact 0870 046 4246, Email sales ( @ ) truancycall dot com, website www.truancycall.com.
