It's holiday time again and students at college campuses across the U.S.
will be huddled around their local ride board looking for a convenient
carpool to drive them over the river and through the woods. As former
Drexel University business students, Andy Guy and Aksel Gungor were in that rabble
once. But thanks to their new internet platform
Ridaroo, a digital
answer to the college bulletin board, university students may soon be
able to bypass this holiday huddle and get on the road a little faster.
"We built Ridaroo here at Drexel initially as an answer to the co-op
office's ride board," says Guy. "But we quickly realized there was a
wider market for a product like this at universities, corporations and a
lot of other entities and when we started expanding our horizons, we
realized there was an opportunity to make this a real business."
Using
Facebook and Google Maps,
Ridaroo
allows students to connect, share routes and meet up out on the road. Guy and Gungor hope to expand accessibility with smartphones, optimizing the site for mobile phones. As they get the word out through Drexel and other universities, Guy and Gungor are examining other applications, working with businesses and government agencies to start carpool programs
for workers. Businesses and universities pay a subscription fee and Guy and Gungor admit that they are still learning how to bring the service to a new location. But once the pilot program is complete, they are confident they will be hitching a ride at college and business campuses across the country.
"Our goal is to go out to the local universities and get somewhere in the range of a dozen schools," says Guy. "At that level, we would feel confident knowing we had proven ourselves in the market. Then it's time to really go after a nationwide effort."
Source: Andy Guy, Ridaroo
Writer: John Steele