A handful of pioneering Columbia Business School alums, along with several of their peers from around the University, have released four new apps, all of which are available on either iTunes, Google Play, and/or Android Play.
Sharebite, currently a member of the 2015–16 cohort in the Columbia Startup Lab, is a charitable food app created in June 2014 by Mohsin Memon ’14. Users order takeout meals from over 1,000 New York City restaurants, and Sharebite donates 2 percent of the sale to the user’s choice of over 1 million charities. The company’s preferred charity is City Harvest, which aims to end childhood hunger in NYC.
Another current Startup Lab project, Tastd was launched in January 2015 by Jacopo Ghidoni ’15 and Andrea Pedroni ’15. The foodie-centric app — which the founders call “Instagram for restaurant recommendations” — allows users to share their favorite restaurants with followers. The more a user’s followers take his recommendations, the higher his score — until he becomes an expert food guru.
Meanwhile, Christine Chiou ’09 and Adeel Murtaza ’12SPS have founded cTHRU Nutrition, dubbed “your personal pocket nutritionist.” Users scan the QR codes for participating product labels and menu items, and the app translates the nutrition and ingredient data into a color-coded funnel that helps users determine whether the food fits their needs. The app also suggests foods for the user based on his or her personal dietary needs.
Dog lovers Steve Xie ’15 and Jinghan Hao ’10SIPA released Wagtail, a social media space and app that allow dog owners to create profiles for and share photos of their pooches, as well as interact with fellow canine enthusiasts through a built-in instant messenger and community forum. As the Columbia Spectator put it: “Now all dog fanatics finally have a space to blow up each other’s news feeds with pictures of pets without the fear of losing followers.”
###
Columbia University–related blog The Lowdown offers a roundup of these apps as well as additional apps from alums from across the University.