One of the most beneficial places to be involved with at Siena College is the Stack Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. I was lucky enough to watch over twenty groups of intelligent students pitch their own business ideas at what Siena calls “Spark Tank.” Afterwards, I was able to talk with the winner who received $500 cash, experience and bragging rights. This semester’s winner was Michael Salvador, the developer of Collab.
Michael is a senior computer science major at Siena. He has some practice with creating apps, his first being an app for people to find car shows near them. With this previous experience, he was able to create Collab within just three weeks!
So, what is Collab? Collab is an application for Siena students to chat with other students in their classes. You are able to select the courses you are enrolled in and you will automatically be put into a group chat with others in your course.
Michael Salvador: The idea is that you can talk about your class and ask questions regarding exams, quizzes and homework.
Mike also decided to include a pretty cool feature that allows you to create a username so everyone is anonymous.
MS: I felt the option should be there. I myself would feel uncomfortable asking my whole class for help. I wanted to include that option there. I have also considered just making everyone appear anonymous.
Mike explained that he came up with the name by brainstorming different terms that encompassed the idea of people working together. The word “collaborate” stuck out, and he chose to just shorten it. He also expressed that his desire to make this app stemmed from the fact that he was entering senior year and he wanted to build something new. He wanted something that would be beneficial to himself, and to others.
So, what does the future look like for Collab? Mike wants to improve the features and get more student users. If there is a high enough level of interest and enough users, he will then create an Android version as the current version is only on the Apple Store.
MS: If the Android version goes well, I will consider bringing Collab to UAlbany. I am ambitious to open this up to all schools if it is successful.
Spark Tank is a great experience for Siena students to get in front of a panel of judges and a crowd to pitch their business idea. It takes hours of creativity, practice and confidence to prepare for this event. After winning Spark Tank against many other Siena students, Mike was ecstatic.
MS: I was super happy I won. It was great practice for presenting and I learned that you should always have reminders in your pocket when pitching. The judges gave good feedback, and asked good questions, questions that even I had myself– one of which was, “How do you prevent bullying?” With this in mind, I made sure that users can be reported.
Now, to any Siena student who wishes to download the app (which they should!) can search for Collab on the app store while on campus. If you are off campus, type in “Mike Salvador” and the application should come up.
Mike plans to continue with Collab after graduation if it gets enough interest, but if not, he wants to get a job in robotics.
MS: I feel successful so far because of the experience Collab has given me.