Auburn Startup: GetCharitable Nominated For 2013 Mobility Award At CES

GetCharitable, Auburn startup, CES 2013An Auburn Alabama startup that accelerated in Oklahoma City’s BluePrint For Business accelerated has just made history, by getting nominated for a distinguished 2013 Mobility Award at CES 2013.

GetCharitable, founded by Auburn University students Michael Isaacs and Kyle DeTullio, makes donating to charity extremely easy for the slackest of slacktivists. The app, currently available in the Google Play Store for Android devices, downloads a sponsored image daily.

Once the app is installed it’s so easy, GetCharitable says:

“That’s it! Once the app is running, you needn’t do a thing – just kick back and wake up each morning with the confidence that you saved a hungry child’s life as a new sponsored image appears each day.”

The Auburn startup was nominated for a prestigious “2013 Mobility Award” as part of the Mobiletrax event. Mobiletrax and the Mobility Awards were founded by longtime industry expert Gerry Purdy PhD.

While most exhibitors at the International CES are vying for “Best of CES” awards and nominations the Mobility Awards are a distinguished honor voted on by top level peers in the mobile industry as well as mobile focused media.

What’s particularly noteworthy for this honor in regards to GetCharitable is that this is the first time that such an early stage startup has been among the nominees. That alone speaks eons to the viability and prospects for the idea focused behind this mobile, socially conscious startup.

The winners will be revealed during a ceremony and banquet January 9th in Las Vegas during the International CES.

Linkage

Getcharitable

More on the 2013 Mobility Awards at CES

Startups in the village have 3 chances to pitch for $100,000 in cash

Auburn Startup Get Charitable Prepares For Demo Day In OKC

One day over a cold draft I’ll tell you the great story behind Michael Isaacs and Kyle DeTullio, their Auburn startup Get Charitable and just how they got into the BluePrint For Business Startup Accelerator in Oklahoma City at the last possible second. Once they made it in though, this duo is looking more like the 2010 Auburn Tigers rather than the Auburn Tigers of today (what a difference a little time makes).

Isaacs and DeTullio met at Auburn University as pledge brothers in 2008 at Sig EP.

Isaacs and DeTullio had been thinking about socially conscious startups last fall.  Over Thanksgiving break last year, Michael thought that if they could leverage smartphone markets, they might be able to make a little difference with a startup.  If they could use advertising revenue, Michael realized, they could possibly feed one child per day for every person that would download their app.  But to make sure they could get this revenue to feed the child daily, the advertisement would have to be outside of an app that the user would have to open.  That’s when Michael knew they had to bring the advertisement to the user, so everyone could work together to make a difference for each child.  The wallpaper and notification menu were the perfect place.

Auburn is a college town built on steadfast traditions. Auburn is a nice town, with a huge swell when class is in session. When it’s not it shrinks down to a small town atmosphere. It’s very old school when it comes to business. If you were going to open a new restaurant you could easily get the townspeople on board. A startup, not so much. A tech startup, even more not so much. A social startup, fuggedabout it.

That’s why the duo started looking for an accelerator outside of Alabama and landed on Blue Print for Business. BP4B is a member of the Techstars/Global Accelerator Network and their first class is graduating on Thursday.

Check out our interview with Isaacs below.

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Auburn Alabama Startup: GolfJoust The Perfect FREE Father’s Day Gift

Auburn Alabama is known for their Auburn Tigers championship football team, Bo Jackson, Cam Netwon and being the alma mater of Apple CEO Tim Cook. It’s not known (yet) for it’s thriving startup scene.

There’s a startup in Auburn hoping to change that, and they are Verge Pipe Media. Verge Pipe Media is a media engagement, social, app developer who’s signature product Golf Joust is turning heads on the golf course because it’s easy, different and a lot more fun than just a boring old score keeping app.

The Verge Pipe team is headed by CEO and founder Don Crow and COO Meredith Singer. Crow had a seasoned career at America Online and has a firm background in media. Singer also has a background in media having worked in television and interactive media throughout their career. They came together last year to work on both Verge Pipe Media and their first major project GolfJoust.

Their office in downtown Auburn is screaming startup culture despite the fact that they’re just a smidgeon older than the 20 something sect of startup founders springing up across the country. That doesn’t matter though, when you walk in there’s of course orange and blue accents, but high top wooden desks, macs everywhere and the classic big ass table in the middle of the office for brainstorming sessions, meetings and lunch.  It’s here next to Auburn’s oldest used bookstore and a stone throws away from campus that the magic happens.

You may be asking yourself just how magic can a golf app be. After all Golf Joust is their first signature product. Well Crow and Singer along with their developers have come up with a golf app that combines golf, scoring, daily deals, social networking and gamification into one complete package.

With Golf Joust you keep your score and as you play more rounds you move up through knighthood. You stay social within your golf group (typically of four) and also golfers near you and the entire network.


There’s challenges, badges (for good and bad) and even the ability to get deals from clubhouses and golf courses.

They’re even working on an element of Fantasy golf where you can play against your favorite PGA players at your favorite PGA courses. I really hate paraphrasing EA sports but Golf Joust really lets you get in the game.

Crow and Singer are constantly brainstorming more and more things that they can add to Golf Joust and they aren’t afraid to get out in the trenches. They regularly spend days out on the golf course promoting Golf Joust. Crow admits that while he expected easy adoption from golfers 18-25 their next biggest segment is in their early 40’s like himself.

Crow explained that many people love the game of golf but know their limits and levels so utilizing Golf Joust and then adding the ability to play against their favorite players makes it even more fun. But the social element makes it ripe for “crap talking” against golfing buddies. You can even give badges to your fellow knights when they hit the double bogey.

So while we would never advocate giving someone a free gift for Father’s Day, introducing your dad, or the golfer in your family to Golf Joust for Father’s day may get a thank you for many years to come.

Linkage:

Check out Golf Joust at their web page here

Here’s your download link for the Google Play Store

Here’s Golf Joust in the iTunes Store

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