REGION — While Internet search engines such as Google and Bing connect people with information, what if there was an application that connected you to the people who are the source of the information or services?
A La Costa Canyon graduate and her Ivy League friends have you covered.
Just months removed from graduating from Yale University, Madeline Rudnick, 22, and her friends just launched the smartphone app “Getmii,” which connects people looking for everything from a dentist to a friend with the people who can provide the service.
“It’s like Google for people,” said Rudnick, who graduated from La Costa Canyon in 2011. “Whether you are looking for something abstract, such as friendship or advice, or something more concrete, such as a delivery service…information isn’t going to help you build furniture, order a pizza or find companionship during hardship, people will. That is what we are doing.”
The app, whose name is a play off of Dr. Ruth’s famous proclamation “Get some,” employs a geo-location algorithm that broadcasts a person’s need to people in that area. Service providers are then able to respond to the need.
Rudnick and five of her friends flew to Bangkok shortly after graduation to launch the app, which has been downloaded more than 10,000 times in the two weeks since it officially dropped.
While some of the applications for the service are practical and mundane, Rudnick said that Getmii has already been used for some potentially life-saving circumstances, such as disaster relief. They piloted the app in Kathmandu, Nepal, as a way to help the Red Cross solicit blood donations in the wake of the earthquakes in April and May that killed more than 11,000 people in the mountainous country.
Blood donations doubled in a day, Rudnick said.
Getmii recently partnered with a German corporation to assist Syrian refugees.
“The app really reflects the need of the community,” Rudnick said. “In Nepal, it was blood, in Boston, apparently, it’s dentists.”
Now back stateside in Boston, Rudnick said the startup continues to grow. They recently received a coveted space in the Harvard Innovation Launch Lab, which provides short-term co-working space for Harvard alumni with high-potential start-up ventures.
They also held guerilla art events at New York’s Grand Central Station and San Francisco’s Union Square where they posed the question: “What do you need?” to passersby and asked them to write their answers on 18 large chalkboards.
Rudnick said she and her partners are in the process of hiring 15 interns in the Boston area to assist with the launch and promotion.
“It’s really exciting to see the growth happening so fast,” Rudnick said. “The response we’ve seen has been very positive.”
While she resides on the East Coast, Rudnick said that La Costa Canyon played a pivotal role in shaping her life goals, which she is pursuing today.
“LCC gave me the tools to get into Yale and to go to a college that gave me the ability to pursue entrepreneurship,” she said. “In that respect, it played a huge role in who I am today.”
Getmii is available for free on Google Play and the Apple App Store.
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