College Students In High-Tech

I’m pleased to report that college students are doing more than binge drinking these days.  Last Wednesday, Eva Sasson and Justin Mardjuki presented their mobile application at the DEMO Conference in Silicon Valley, a technology convention that focuses on showcasing new products from entrepreneurs and established companies.  Popular household products such as TiVo, Adobe Acrobat, and E-Trade all rose from obscurity at the DEMO Conference. 

Unlike most of the presenters, Eva and Justin are full-time college students, and the duo started TappMob while on summer vacation.  TappMob is a mobile app that lets you check in at a location and notify just one person or small groups of people you are there.  As you might know, there’s an app called Foursquare that allows people to check into public locations--this is a more personalized modification.  Eva and Justin developed TappMob so that young people can “check-in” with their parents on occasion. 

“Everytime I drive somewhere my mom would be calling me to check in but I couldn’t pick up the phone to talk while I was driving,” says Sasson, now the CEO of the company.  Now, she can touch a button to send her parents her location on a map.

Although TappMob commenced as a summertime concept, it has quickly developed into a legitimate business.  Eva and Justin received funding from Accretive, a private equity firm that invests in startup companies.  On September 11, TappMob submitted its first app to the Apple App Store.  Now, the company is in the planning stages for three more mobile apps based on the concept of one-touch technology. 

Eva and Justin are part of increasingly younger generations of entrepreneurs.  In May, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel announced the members of the 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowships, which endow young people with $100,000 grant to turn their ideas into companies.  The grant winners are using the funds to create a wide range of businesses, from alternative energy to education to e-commerce.  Calgary Native and Princeton sophomore Eden Full will use her grant money to speed up the process of patenting and licensing her solar panel technology that operates without the aid of electricity. 
I liken these young startups to high-school athletes that skip college to play professional sports.  You have your brilliant success stories like Kobe and LeBron, but for every high-profile Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg story, there are many, less-publicized examples of successful businesspeople who stayed in school.  Thiel’s program has come under scrutiny for luring young people out of college early, but it has defended itself by arguing students can always return to school if their business doesn’t work out.