This is our first day at One Spark. We haven’t seen any creators yet. But what we did is we searched through the One Spark website to see which creators we definitely wanted to check out while we were here. Now, this is in no way saying that these are the best tech creators here at One Spark, but these are the ones that got our attention.
Verti Bluetooth item finder – Urban Grind Coffee Company (50 N Laura)
This is similar to the Tile you may have seen advertised on Facebook. This is a small bluetooth device that you can attach to your key ring, or stick to something. If you lose your item, you can open the app on your iPhone or android smartphone, and find the item.
What makes the Verti different is that it has a button on it. So, if you lose your phone, you can press the button on the Verti and find your phone. Also, according to the creator, the Verti will have a much larger range 200 feet instead of the normal 50-100 feet. It also has motion detection so you can tell if an item has moved.
What I want to know is if you can replace the battery. A lot of these Bluetooth finders have batteries that cannot be replaced, Which means you have to buy a new one every time the battery dies.
Park Genius – North Bank Riverwalk (341 South Hogan Street)
Instead of replacing the existing parking meters with electronic ones that can cost tens of thousands of dollars, their idea is to just augment them with a mobile app. All the city has to do is put a sticker on the parking meter that tells parkers that they can pay on the iOS or Android app, and the parking enforcement can check on their mobile device to see if you paid or not.
Marbel – SunTrust Building (76 N Laura Street)
Ultralight electric skateboard that can travel up to 10 miles with a top speed of 20 mph, and only weighs 9.9 pounds. The coolest part is that it also has an iOS app that you can use to control the ride! My inner twelve-year-old boy is thrilled.
Bucketwish – Jacksonville Bank Building (100 N Laura Street)
Bucketwish is a social network where you can post your wish list. It gives a fun way to share the crazy dreams and wishes that you want to do with your family, friends and strangers, and they can contribute to them and help make them happen.
The idea is, it’s kind of like Make-A-Wish or Dreams Come True, but not just for kids with life threatening illnesses.
The idea behind Bucketwish sounds odd. Who would want to pay for you to live out your dream, but honestly Kickstarter would’ve sounded insane just five years ago.
We’ve seen this kind of thing happen on crowd funding sites, where someone will do it for someone else, Like what happened with the bus driver who was being harassed by the students. Someone saw that terrible video and then turn around and raised enough money for her to go on vacation. There was such a huge response, that he ended up raising over $750,000.
WaZINIT – SunTrust Building (76 N Laura Street)
WaZINIT is an app that lets you scan the bar code of food products to see if they contain anything that you are trying to avoid. So, if you are allergic to peanuts, or you just don’t like artificial sweeteners, WaZINIT would let you know whether to avoid it or not.
It reminded me of an app that we talked about on our show one time called secretly vegan. Secretly Vegan lists common supermarket products that are vegan. WaZINIT takes it one step further.
Brash – The Jacksonville Landing, 2 Independent Drive
A universal gift card that is randomly filled with money throughout the day by various stores. But the money is only on the card for a limited amount of time.
The example they give on their profile page really explains it best. John Doe would get a text message saying “Hey John, you just received a $23 gift from Kohl’s! Hurry, that money is only good for 72 hours. BTW Kohl’s has 20% all coats this week!” John goes to Kohl’s and uses his Brash Card like a normal gift card. But, if John doesn’t spend that gift in time, that $23 goes directly back to Kohl’s. Merchants are guaranteed nearly full return on marketing investment, consumers get a few extra bucks.” Everybody is happy!
Alert The Boss – Visit Jacksonville (208 North Laura Street)
Alert the Boss is a text messaging service that allows customers to interact with businesses before they post a negative comment or complaint on a site like Yelp or Urbanspoon.
Evan Diamond from Alert The Boss was on Deemable Tech last year to talk about it before One Spark last year. At the time, Alert The Boss was really still just a concept. They were literally still working on the prototype right up until we started recording the podcast. In the year since then Alert the Boss has grown tremendously, and is a really great service.
SwitchTick – The Jacksonville Landing (2 Independent Drive)
Switch take is a website that allows you to exchange items with other people. So, for example if you had a microwave that you no longer need, but you need a new recliner, you could trade someone for a recliner on SwitchTick
#crtfreejax – South Laura Street
This is something that we’ve talked about on our radio segment and on our podcast before, you cannot just throw out computers, especially computer monitors. #crtfreejax wants to fabricate a machine that can recycle the Cathode Ray Tubes, which are the most difficult and dangerous part of computers.
Two projects that aren’t tech related that we have to mention:
Dawgtown – Icon Boutique (108 East Adams Street)
Dawgown is a hand-drawn animated movie by my friend Justin Murphy about a pitbull that is trying to escape the world of underground dogfighting. And, Al Letson, the host of State of the Re:Union is the voice of the MC in the movie.
Chomp Chips – Chomp Chomp (106 W Adams Street)
Curry. Potato. Chips. That’s all I have to say. If you haven’t had them… you haven’t lived. In fact, I have to wrap this up so I can go get some right now.