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NYC BigApps: Advice from past winner Aaron Royston
Reminder: Spots still open for NYC BigApps 3.0 Developer Day this Saturday, January 7! Free registration here. Come work on your app, meet the NYC Open Data team, and collaborate with other developers and designers!
Reblog from the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC):
Jan 5 CommentsHow’s your app coming along? The deadline for NYC BigApps 3.0 submissions is coming up January 25th. For inspiration, we checked in with previous BigApps winners for words of wisdom for this year’s competitors. Read on for insights from Aaron Royston of Sportaneous, which is a location-based online and iPhone application that allows users to find fellow athletes to play games with at nearby public facilities.
What were the most important aspects of winning BigApps for you?
Sportaneous won the Popular Choice award and 2nd Overall Grand Prize, and we received a lot of publicity following the event. Our app requires a strong network effect to be effective, so therefore this PR helped a lot in building our user base.
How has your app, company, or career evolved since winning BigApps?
From the BigApps recognition we received, co-founder Omar Haroun and I were invited to the White House to receive the Champions of Change award in Technology and Innovation, which was a great honor.
What are your future goals for your app, company, or self?
Sportaneous is evolving into a discovery tool beyond just pick-up sports, and we are developing a proprietary algorithm to help suggest activities that our users will enjoy. The new edition should be released in the spring.
What advice would you give new BigApps applicants?
The user interface is a key component to making an app compelling and attractive. It is not simply about the idea, but the execution is critical. -
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 30 CommentsThe 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.
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NYC BigApps: Advice from previous winner David Mahfouda
Reblog from the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC):
Dec 21 CommentsThe deadline for 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 David Mahfouda, co-founder of Weeels. The Weeels App offers people with mobile phones a fast, easy, and affordable way to order car service and share rides.
What were the most important aspects of winning BigApps for you?
It was very gratifying to receive recognition from the City for our hard work: generating shared rides in order to reduce congestion and emissions in NYC, and providing low-cost transportation alternatives for NYC residents.
How has your app, company, or career evolved since winning BigApps?
Weeels has become a proud tenant of NYC ACRE (New York City Accelerator for a Clean and Renewable Economy), another City initiative that has been a fantastic resource for our company and NYC’s cleantech sector in general. From our new base at NYC ACRE, Weeels has developed a partnership with the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission and the Port Authority, creating a line-management system that facilitates cab-sharing from airports—a product that will be available this spring. The company has also been able to license its software to international organizations, which will be implementing ride-sharing programs powered by Weeels.
What are your future goals for your app, company, or self?
Weeels just launched an easy-to-use transit-directions application called Don’t Be Late. Don’t Be Late reads your Google Calendar and sends you travel directions before your upcoming appointments, so users can forgo last-minute Google-mapping. Also, we’re really looking forward to the new version of Weeels, which will be available in just a few weeks. Keep an eye out!
What advice would you give new BigApps applicants?
Enjoy! That, and be forward with the City about what your needs are, especially from a data perspective. In our experience, city agencies have been very receptive to inquiries and feedback.
Excluding your own, what’s your favorite BigApps app?
Don’t Eat At! We know a lot of other people love this app, but we do too! We think it illustrates the power of correlation. In the media world, it can be hard to remember that most users don’t want complex interfaces and a glut of information. What users need is the right information at the right time. Our newest app, Don’t Be Late, was created with this in mind.
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Devs, designers, and techies: jump-start 2012
Looking to take your skills and ideas to the next level in the new year? Check out NYC BigApps 3.0 — New York City’s third annual competition for the best software applications that use city data to make NYC better.
Challenge: Create an app that utilizes NYC Open Data to help NYC residents, visitors, and businesses.
Data and resources:
- More than 700 data sets from NYC Open Data
- APIs from NYC companies: 8coupons, Aviary, bitly, Boxee, CartoDB, DonorsChoose.org, Etsy, foursquare, GetGlue, Hunch, Magma, Meetup, Minus, The New York Times, NewsBlur, Readability, RecordSetter, StreetEasy, TwitrPix, Vimeo, Yipit, and Zemanta
New specialized programs:
- The Grand Prize winners for Best Overall and Popular Choice Apps will get a chance to demo at NY Tech Meetup
- TechStars will select at least two BigApps 3.0 entrants to be TechStars Finalists and participate in the final found of its highly selective startup acceleration program
- Winners will be eligible to join the BigApps Founders Network, which provides mentorship, networking, and business support services to help winners launch or expand their startups
Why enter? Great prizes ($50,000 in cash and more), recognition, and exposure. An all-star judging panel. And this could be you next year.
Register to enter: NYCBigApps.com
NYC BigApps Highlights:
Where Are They Now? A Look at Past NYC BigApps Winners [NY Convergence]
Technical Lead of NYC BigApps Breaks Down the City’s Brand New API [BetaBeat]
Mayor Bloomberg Launches NYC BigApps 3.0 Competition [Press Release]
NYC BigApps Ideas Challenge Looks to Involve Everyone [ProgrammableWeb]
[VIDEO] NYC BigApps 2.0 Behind the Scenes + Award Ceremony [Facebook]Follow @NYCBigApps and @ChallengePost on Twitter, and join us on Facebook. Use hashtag #NYCBigApps when you tweet.
By Samantha
Dec 19 Comments -
NYC BigApps: Checking in with Max Stoller
Reblog from the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC):
Dec 16 Comments
Max Stoller, center, won the BigApps 2.0 Student Award in March 2011.
The 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 Max Stoller, creator of DontEat.at. His app warns users via text messages when they check into NYC restaurants at risk of being closed for health code violations.
What were the most important aspects of winning BigApps for you?
It’s incredibly rewarding to build an app that thousands of people in your own city use.
What are your future goals for your app?
As soon as I have time, I’m going to expand DontEat.at to other cities.
How has your app, company, or career evolved since winning BigApps?
I landed a summer job at foursquare because of DontEat.at.
