The NUvention: Web presentations took place recently in March. There were many interesting projects presented, all of which are detailed below:
Suggenda is an online event planning tool which builds off the idea that current event planning tools are inefficient and do not work well when planning a dinner together with friends. It also addresses the issue that many restaurants face in terms of bringing in new diners and filling in seats during non-peak hours. Suggenda’s solution is to offer a way to play matchmaker between restaurants and potential diners, providing a platform for restaurants to directly see the discussion on convenient dining times provide deal offers based on what they see, providing consumers with what they say is easy and fun social event planning.
AlumSocial is a website which deals with the problematic aspects of multiple alumni networks, outdated directories, and job searches by providing a single platform for alumni to find information, connect with networking contacts, and find friends with common interests through affinity groups. AlumSocial also engages with the university side, aiming to allow universities to manage and measure the alumni engagement experience
DiSCO5:01 is a photo-driven social application for smart-phones designed for people and their friends to communicate and collectively capture memories while they’re on the go. It is designed to make communication more interactive and engaging, redefining the way people communicate.
Sweetperk.com is a web-based service that allows small businesses to manage promotions by allowing business owners to create and manage promotions online, replacing paper coupons, cutting down waste, and partnering with business improvement districts. Consumers will be able to redeem these promotions using their mobile devices. Ultimately, Sweetperk.com’s goal is to encourage people to live life local.
Storytree works off the notion that there is currently platform for player collaboration in social gaming, despite the fact that there are over 100 million users on games like Farmville. What Storytree does is to allow gamers to competitively create and share stories, turning them from content consumers to content producers. According to the makers of Storytree, “everyone likes a good story”, and their product provides an opportunity for real collaboration.
MassiveStart targets the inefficiencies of the job search: according to them, as it stands currently, recruiters are receiving hundreds of resumes from unqualified candidates, qualified programmers are getting lost in this deluge, and project managers aren’t getting the employees they need. MassiveStart aims to create a social community designed to allow users on both sides of the job search to interact with each other, providing a place for programmers to showcase their talents and giving recruiters a chance to see what developers can actually produce, combining the best aspects of sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook on one professional platform.
Mood.dj is aimed at streamlining the digital music consumption process. According to the creators, the way people consume music is determined by their mood/desired mood, and the current system of manually created playlists is inefficient, as playlists constantly need to be updated and they do not always match up to the activity at hand. Mood.dj is a music application that delivers custom music from users’ personal libraries to go along with their current mood by reading their personal iTunes library, tagging their music automatically using databases and an intelligence machine, and generating a mood-based list of songs, saving the consumer time and energy.
Peer Points
Peer Points is a loyalty program designed to enable repeated engagement between businesses, customers, and customer groups. It is designed to tackle the problem that many stores face in trying to reach a wider consumer base, as many “deal” type models focus on one-time bargain hunters, social check-in apps cannot verify actual purchases, and consumers want to be rewarded for their loyalty without necessarily carrying multiple loyalty cards.
Entrepreneur.NU 