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NYC BigApps: Advice from past winner Judy Wong
We love hearing success stories from past NYC BigApps winners! Check out Judy’s new iPhone app that helps tourists and residents explore the Lower East Side.
Reblog from the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC):
Dec 30The deadline for NYC BigApps 3.0 submissions is less than one month away. For inspiration, we checked in with previous BigApps winners for words of wisdom for this year’s competitors. Read on for insights from Judy Wong of NYC Plan It, which won the NYC BigApps 2.0 City Talent Award. NYCPlanIt serves as a personal tour guide for visitors in New York City.
What were the most important aspects of winning BigApps for you?
It was a joy for us to create NYC Plan It, which would help NYC’s major tourism and travel industry by supporting local businesses like restaurants and shops. Using technology to practically help people around us—travelers, locals and also industry folks—meant a lot for us working in technology. Many times there is a disconnect between business and charity, and business and the real lives of people.
How has your app, company, or career evolved since winning BigApps?
Since the competition, we have been developing our app across platforms in iOS for iPhone as well as other platforms such as Blackberry. We’ve also listened to our users and have redesigned the pages to be more modern and contemporary. The users have given us a lot of kudos for the concept of NYC Plan It and now we have caught on to their need to cover more mobile markets and make the UI friendlier. We’ve also had chances to develop more apps for Android and iPhone. Check out our iPhone app for the Lower East Side Tourism Center.
What are your future goals for your app, company, or self?
We hope to continue to develop our product within this niche local NYC market. We hope to help build up businesses during such hard economic times. After 9/11 it was hard, but with this economy it’s continued to be difficult. Maybe our app can help things improve for consumers, travelers, locals, and businesses alike.
What advice would you give new BigApps applicants?
Keep up the good work. Creativity really helps to drive technology and connect users, our world around us and the emerging technology market. It’s also great to be part of the Big Apple; if your app can make it here, it can make it anywhere.
Excluding your own, what’s your favorite BigApps app?
Our team felt that the winners all had wonderful apps. We need the parking space finder since it’s so useful. DontEat.at was also really great. We love food and eating and find that helpful as we go to different restaurants. It’s absolutely the favorite of our friends, too.
