Project Title : “Pocket Gopher”

During the chaos time of hurricane Sandy, we were shocked because we realized we did not have enough information of our neighborhood. We did not know when a subway would run, which gas station actually had gas, or where is the shelter, shuttle bus stop, and so on.

So, I thought it would be great if we had a mobile application which we can share information in our town. The base is very similar to ‘Twitter’, but the difference is when someone post useful information of certain area, you can get a alert text message if you are in the same (or near) area.

For example, if you happen to know that every train service is suspended between Jay st. and 42 st. Time Sq. due to the heavy rain, you can post about this via the application “pocket gopher”. Then, the server automatically sort out the location and send message to all the members in the area (Jay st / 42 st Time Sq.)

I named this project “pocket gopher” because as you know, gophers (ground squirrels) are altruistic animals. They frequently stand watch at the entrance to their tunnels and whistle when predators are spotted, causing all the other gophers to run for the safety of the tunnels. Just like this, you can help lots of people with posting valuable information via “pocket gopher”.

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