Cool Person of the Day

Many tech blogs have coined the term “sharing economy” to describe the phenomenon that has started occurring with sites AirBnB and Uber.  These sites circumvent traditional commercial models for new models that encourage consumer-to-consumer transactions.  AirBnB allows people to rent out extra rooms or apartments to people so users don’t have to pay expensive hotel rates.  Uber lets people share rides with drivers to avoid paying for expensive taxis.  This sharing model has disrupted industries and created much controversy, as well as several legal battles with established industries.  Despite these setbacks, the movement continues to push forward and even expands with the help of cool people in technology like Victor Miron, the founder of UseTogether. Read more »

Every electronic device sold to consumers has options for customers to pursue when the product has a genuine defect.  These options often include a warranty or some access to customer services such as IT support. However, many companies hide the information needed for customers to take advantage of these options within large, dense information packets or in booklets that end up thrown away once someone opens the product’s packaging.  Many people have tried to access warranty services only to find out that they need a piece of the product’s packaging or that they can’t find the proper support number.  Read more »

One of the most common ways that people find new restaurants to frequent is through the recommendations of friends and other peers.  Whether it’s for a one-time event or for more regular visits, people trust the recommendations of people like them when it comes to food.  This fact is what has driven cool person in technology Shane Quigley to found his company Foddr.

Foddr is an online web tool that connects to social networking in order to provide users with restaurant recommendations based on where their friends and the friends of their friends are going to eat.  Through the use of algorithms and a connection to customers’ Facebook profiles, Quigley’s web tool scans different statuses and geotagged locations from a person’s social networking connections.  Foddr then uses this data to provide Quigley’s customers with recommendations for their next night out on the town.  Foddr currently requires a connection to Facebook in order to work properly.  Anyone whose Facebook profile does not properly connect to Foddr to give them recommendations can seek help from an online tech support professional.  Read more »

Productivity can take a hit when a company’s staff spends a significant amount of time on little tasks that don’t have to do with their primary work.  Copies, data entry, taking surveys, going out and buying supplies, and even just cleaning the office space can take precious time away from employee’s important work.  This problem caused cool person in technology, Tim Fung, to found a startup dedicated to helping companies take care of these small tasks.

Fung is the CEO of Airtasker, which provides both businesses and individuals with freelance help for the extra tasks that distract people from their primary goals.  In theory, Fung’s company supplies a business with workers who will efficiently handle smaller tasks and allow full-time employees the ability to focus on what they need to finish rather than the extra tasks that normally fill up their time.  Read more »

When professionally producing a video content such as a film or TV show, keeping that content under wraps is a must, especially with Internet piracy as rampant as it is today.  Because of this need for secrecy, many media professionals make physical copies of the video content they produce when they need to screen it for others.  They believe that sending files digitally, while more convenient, is too risky for security issues when compared to DRM encrypted DVDs.

Cool person in technology Jason Deadrich wants to provide a solution to this problem with his company Fordela.  Fordela provides media professionals and companies with a cloud-based media management system.  This system allows Fordela users to deliver professional video content through streaming in a safe manner that is as risk-free as an encrypted physical copy.  Since Fordela keeps copies of any professional media on their cloud system, users don’t have to risk sending a complete file to anyone else.  Deadrich’s company lets people stream the media they need to show to anyone through the Internet thanks to their cloud solution.  Anyone who has trouble streaming media over their network should seek network services to fix the problem. Read more »

In 2005, three ex-PayPal employees founded a site that changed content distribution and viral marketing on the web forever.  They named that site YouTube.  YouTube popularized the practice of everyday users creating content and posting it on the web.  YouTube kept the content specific to the video format, but still managed to change the way people thought about the web.  YouTube videos are now essential for many companies, public personas, celebrities, and artists in order to have a serious presence on the web and gain a strong fan base.  However, not all content marketing is best through a video format.  That’s where cool person in technology Scott Annan steps in with his company Accel.io. Read more »

Much like the fields of online computer repair and mobile technology, medical research is an area where things move fast and it’s important to keep up with the latest developments.  Cool person in technology Mitesh Patel founded DocPhin to help doctors and other medical professionals keep up with the latest research from medical journals. DocPhin connects doctors with a large array of medical journals and keeps all the articles a doctor wants to read all in one place.  Patel wants doctors to have easy access to recent medical research at any time.  The goal is to make it difficult to fall behind on new articles or research when a medical professional is using Patel’s app.  The app collects and archives all the major medical journals doctors read so they can quickly browse through them on mobile devices.  Doctors can save space and time when using DocPhin, as they’ll avoid letting unread medical journals pile up in their office or home.  With DocPhin, doctors can easily find the articles relevant to their field or that interest them in particular.  Patel hopes that DocPhin can make doctors’ lives easier by providing such convenient access to new research. Read more »

Many people have stories about finding a piece of clothing ridiculously cheap at a thrift shop or secondhand store.  Who doesn’t enjoy getting quality items for heavy discounts?  People also enjoy secondhand shops for the feeling of hunting for an item.  By searching more diligently through a large amount of secondhand material, people feel more accomplished when they find an item they actually like.  Still, not everyone has a thrift shop or secondhand clothing store nearby.

Cool person in technology Noah Ready-Campbell wants to take the thrift shop experience and transport it to an online space.  Ready-Campbell’s startup Twice is a web-only secondhand clothes shop that buys used clothing and resells it.  This cool person has made it possible for anyone to experience the thrill of hunting for and finding the perfect secondhand item for a much lower price than retail.  Ready-Campbell is aiming his site at those who love to shop, since the experience is unique and distinguishable from retail or big brand clothing stores.  Anyone who has problems shopping online should consult with an online computer support service before using Twice. Read more »

New aspects of education turn digital every other day it seems.  Test taking, grading, essays, and even college courses in their entirety have all taken advantage of digital advances in the last decade.  However, there is one small administrative detail that has shockingly remained exclusively paper-based through all that time: transcripts.  High school and college transcripts remain paper-based, which is highly inconvenient to both students and administrators.  It increases both the effort and time necessary to both order and process transcripts, as well as sending them between institutions when a student is graduating high school or transferring colleges.  Read more »

Food delivery over the Internet is not a new phenomenon.  People have been placing online orders at some restaurants from as early as the 1990’s.  However, ordering food has never been a uniform experience and differences between online ordering systems can confuse or upset customers.  It’s more than likely that people have called phone computer support for help when trying to figure out a food delivery website that they do not have experience with in any way.  Cool person in technology Niklas Ostberg wants to help fix this problem with his website Delivery Hero.  Read more »