Cool Person of the Day

New crowdfunding sites seem to pop up every day since Kickstarter blew up on the tech scene.  Most sites focus on one particular industry or type of project that can benefit from the now-popular model.  Almost all of these sites are very capitalistic in nature, looking for backers to support businesses or commercial music, writing, and art.  There is nothing wrong with helping entrepreneurs or artists chase their dreams, but cool person in tech Beth Schmidt believes there’s another group who could benefit greatly from this concept—poor and underprivileged youth.  Beth Schmidt is the founder and executive director of the non-profit Internet company Wishbone.  Wishbone finds promising young people who do not have the resources to pay for the education that would allow them to chase their goals.  Schmidt’s company then provides them a space on the Internet where backers can crowdfund their education.  Rather than use the crowdfunding model to invest in single projects or startup business, Schmidt wants people to invest in a proven resource for society’s future—smart, young students.  Read more »

Having a dedicated platform to promote and sell your art can have a significantly positive effect at any stage of an artist’s career.  Getting access to such a platform early on is particularly helpful in the crowded world of fine art.  That’s why cool person in tech Alex Farkas created UGallery in 2006.  UGallery is an online platform that promotes and sells artwork specifically created by artists who are still young in their careers.  Farkas knew the web could be a powerful tool for leveling the playing field between new artists and established ones.  That’s why when he formed UGallery, he chose to target the emerging crowd of painters, illustrators, and photographers rather than chase after established names in the world of gallery art.  UGallery’s model is dependent on newer artists submitting their portfolios to the curation staff at UGallery, which includes Farkas himself.  UGallery selects the artists they want to promote and then help them set up a presence on their site where they can sell their work to interested buyers.  Buyers who have trouble browsing through choices on UGallery can always contact computer support for help.  Read more »

Customer engagement is critical for website services and mobile applications.  Even if a website draws many unique visitors or app gets thousands of downloads, it doesn’t mean much if users don’t keep coming back for more.  Cool person in technology Robert Zepeda believes he has an answer to this dilemma with his gamification methods.  Zepeda founded Playbasis in 2011 in order to help both startups and established businesses use gamification to improve user engagement with their services.  Zepeda’s company believes that user engagement and behavior is key to providing a company with useful insights into their business practices.  Zepeda’s clients receive access to an online platform that allows them to set “rules” for their service or app.  These often come in the form of special badges or achievements that customers earn from their usage of a website or application.  For example, a business could award a “power user” badge to a site user who signs in to its service over five hundred times.  Playbasis offers a number of pre-created rule-sets for businesses to use, but also lets them create their own set based on how users interact with a product.  Companies that have trouble with getting badges to operate correctly on their apps or websites should contact office computer support for help. Read more »

Most travel or concierge style apps target the lower and middle market of consumers, as that’s where you find most mobile users.  However, cool person in tech Matthew Rowe founded iVIP to cater to a very specific, premium piece of the travel market—the very rich.  Rowe created his suite of iVIP apps as part of a service that gives targeted advice, information, privileges and special offers to individuals of high net worth who prefer luxury accommodations and services.  Rowe believes there that the upper tier of the market is looking for a mobile app that caters specifically to their taste and lifestyle.  The iVIP apps come with a service where luxury companies offer members exclusive upgrades, products, and services to members of the app.  Rowe’s iVIP apps connect users to these services based on their specific location, as the app’s offers vary from city to city.  If you were interested in checking out the iVIP app but have trouble with your mobile device, a mobile tech support service would be the best option for you. Read more »

The holiday season is only a few months away and for many people that will mean the buying and receiving of copious amounts of retail gift cards.  Thickening your wallet with these cards and even remembering to use them all can be inconvenient and troublesome—not the sort of experience you want to have associated with gift giving.  Cool person in technology Vinny Lingham founded his startup Gyft in 2012 to attack the problem of physical gift cards.  Gyft uses mobile technology to make storing, keeping track of, and using gift cards a seamless process for consumers.  Users download an app on their smartphone where they can enter the information from their physical gift cards.  Lingham’s app stores the information and lets users access it directly from their phone so they can toss all the plastic versions of their cards away.  Read more »

When one considers Facebook’s origins as a college-exclusive social network, one could say that the college environment is the birthplace of modern social networking and digital life.  Facebook leveraged college’s social scene to make mass communication easier.  What if an entrepreneur leveraged the social nature of college to help students with the real purpose of universities—education?  Entrepreneur and cool person in tech Jack Tai founded OneClass to attempt exactly that.  OneClass is an online resource for post-secondary school students that crowdsources study materials and class notes to form a large database of helpful tools for students.  OneClass sources course notes on a wide variety of subjects from students across North America.  It also stores organized study packets and video tutorials for many of those subjects.  OneClass focuses on offering study material provided by other students rather than formal textbook-style material provided by teachers or institutions.  In theory, this makes a lot of sense, as students would likely understand other students’ way of explaining things.  Anyone who has trouble accessing the notes or videos on OneClass should find remote tech support for help with a solution. Read more »

For many people, an office job, a five-day workweek and a typical urban environment can make for a very satisfying life.  However, cool person in tech Dominic Jackman believes there are many other professionals out there who feel unfulfilled by their current work.  That’s why he founded Escape the City, an organization dedicated to helping professionals leave standard office jobs for more exotic and adventurous opportunities.  Using a wide variety of features such as a job-posting site, an e-mail newsletter, and a social network, Jackman wants to ensure that professionals looking for something different have all the resources needed to find that opportunity.  Escape the City specifically aims to attract jobseekers who are trying to break convention.  For example, a high level IT support professional might use the site to leave a corporate position and head the IT department of a growing non-profit in Africa.  Not every job offered on the site is so exotic.  Many of the opportunities listed on Jackman’s site are merely positions at very young companies, which offer a very different culture for professionals looking to change their scenery.  Read more »

Anna Lewis left her government job as a policy advisor in 2008 to pursue her personal interest in entering the publishing world.  However, this cool person in technology didn’t take the traditional path and apply for jobs at major book publishers or even small presses.  Instead, she used technology to tackle book publishing from a different angle and launched CompletelyNovel, her first tech startup.  CompletelyNovel provided authors a platform for communication, advice, and self-publishing—all via the web.  Lewis worked on CompletelyNovel with her business partner Oliver Brooks for several years, expanding the site’s features and user base before deciding that what they were doing wasn’t enough.  Lewis apparently wasn’t satisfied with just changing how people publish books with the web, but also how people purchase and read eBooks online.  That’s why she founded ValoBox in 2011, a company that allows users to pay for cloud-based eBooks by chapter or even by page if they so desire.  Those who have ever needed a computer data recovery to retrieve lost eBooks on their hard drive will see the possible benefits of the ValoBox service.  Both of Lewis’s startups leverage the Internet to provide new models for the book industry on both the publishing and consumer sides.  Read more »

While companies release newer, more advanced consumer technology all the time with an ever-growing list of features, they make an overwhelmingly large amount of this tech out of plastic or cheap metal.  These cheaper components can lead to shorter lifespans for devices and accessories, no matter how advanced their features.  Cool person in technology Julien Salanave believes there is a better way to create technology products.  That’s why he founded Orée.  He wanted to build computer accessories that forgo the common metal and plastic material for a unique, eco-friendly feel.  Salanave’s company constructs all its products from wood and other natural materials.  This choice certainly distinguishes Orée’s line-up of computer accessories from the competition and makes them stand out among mass-market electronics. Read more »

New startups and growing businesses need all the useful tools they can get when developing new products and projects.  Fortunately, cool person in tech Benjamin Satterfield has created multiple useful products that can assist teams as they work towards deadlines and release dates.  Satterfield is the founder and CEO of both TestFlight and Twiddla. TestFlight is a useful service that streamlines the app beta testing process for software companies.  Twiddla is a collaboration tool that works as a digital whiteboard of sorts where multiple users can connect and use digital highlighting and marking tools to communicate.  Satterfield runs both companies concurrently and both companies have designed products to help project teams and startups do their jobs more efficiently.  TestFlight allows companies to speed up the beta testing process and make it more convenient.  Twiddla allows for better collaboration and communication, even across distances.  In both cases, Satterfield is working to help others in the tech sector. Read more »