Five months since the launch of the Postcare App for iPhone, Perth’s very first digital community project is thriving. Today, the team announced that the app – which has already been downloaded over 700 times on iOS – is now available on Android devices.
Postcare App has been created to bring back the good old fashioned post card but with an ultra-modern tech spin. With the great features in our smart phones, this app enables the user to have any photograph turned into a physical post card containing your personal message and delivered to the door of your friend or family member. Easy as pie!
What makes this app truly cooler than anything else I have seen recently is that
- the creators have generously donated this technology to Good Sammy’s and;
- Good Sammy’s will utilise this app to give paid employment to people with disabilities.
Just a great situation all around really, everyone is a winner!
Nilesh Makwana answered some questions for our avid readers:
//Startup News(SN): How did you come up with this idea?
Nilesh Makwana(NM): “I came up with the idea after submitting an assignment for my class at Edith Cowan University, actually. I was supposed to write “send letter by post”, but accidentally I wrote “send email by post” instead. The error stuck with me, but then I started to think. How about sending emails by post for real? After discussing the idea with Sue Findlay, amongst others, I came up with the concept that today are ready for download on iTunes; the Postcare App. My writing mistake resulted in a postcard app, where you take a photo which will be printed and posted as a physical postcard. Another idea that developed together with this, and affected the result in a major way, was to combine technology and the community, and to use technology and IT as a way to help out in the community. I decided to donate the app to Good Samaritan Industries, and to generate employment at their facility in Canning Vale for people with disabilities.”
SN: What do you hope will come out of the project?
NM: The project has already brought together the community, by the combined contribution from corporate organisations and from non- profits. As this is an app with community in mind, and a charity project, we can only grow from here. What I did was to start making connections, not spending a single cent apart from a couple of coffees, and soon organisations were onboard and eager to make contributions. The support I have received has been incredible, and the team I have gathered have done a great job. The journey is not over, and, if a project like the Postcare App could occupy even only one person in employment, then it is a success.
Nilesh states “What I wanted to do, also, was to bring people together and to collaborate. At the initial launch event, something rather odd struck me. My friend Michelle Sandford was the designated MC of the evening. She works for Microsoft. And, if you can have a representative from Microsoft launching an Apple app, then everything is possible!”
SN: How does new technology allow people to connect in a new way/create a sense of community?
NM: The app in itself is just a simple app. It is a very simple idea, and nothing revolutionary in terms of the system or the product. What makes the Postcare App project special, is how different people have connected, and worked together to achieve a common goal; to give something back. The app has brought together a diversity of organisations, businesses, and individuals. All contributing in every way possible, either by providing material, time or skills.
Another way the app allow people to connect, are the fact that it makes it possible for people to interact in a way that is almost gone. Today, we keep in touch with our family and friends constantly through social media or phones. The postcard is not used as much, since it is too easy to share where you are, what you are up to or who you are with. But it does not mean that people does not want physical post anymore. Everybody loves to receive a postcard. It is just not sent by anyone any more. So, by creating a postcard app, technology contribute to bringing back something almost forgotten. The feeling of receiving something someone made an effort to create cannot be beaten by anything, and I am proud to offer an option for people to begin sending postcards again.
SN: Despite new technologies, are there still similarities in the way in which people build communities? What are the differences?
NM: Today we live in the era of instant messaging. Of Facebook statuses, chats, Twitter and emails. By being able to connect so easily, the sensation of real connection is somewhat lost. We live in a virtual world, where the emotional sense of connection is diminishing. The Postcare App project is all about combining technology with the emotional way of sharing and connecting. The solution for us was to bring back the postcard, and by extension, bringing back the emotional aspect of sharing. By applying technology in this way, we contribute to supporting the community by filling a gap. As for any similarities in the way people build communities, the way people build communities will always be similar to before. In the end, communities are there for people, made by people. The only difference in this project, as an IT guy, is that I went out and met people instead of hiding behind a screen. And I made people meet new people, outside of their offices or positions.
On behalf of our //Startup News team, a great big thank you to Nilesh Makwana and his enigmatic team at Post Care App for giving such a great gift to our community.