An app for coordinating item storage at people’s houses called Storage Together was the winner of the Arizona Institute of Digital Progress’ Smart City Hack competition on Friday.
The goal of the Smart City Hack competition is to determine which competing startup best improves the city. This is the second year iDP has hosted event.
Friday’s City Finale event at the Orpheum Theater included the top five finalists from the competition. The winning team receives $3,000 and represents the city in the international competition at the Smart City Expo in Barcelona.
Storage Together allows for people to store their stuff at a host’s house. It is an app to provide an alternative to Phoenix residents who need to store their items for the summer or any other reason.
“This app is so that people can host other peoples stuff at a low cost,” said Luke Amargo, founder of Storage Together. “It is great because the individual residents of Phoenix have a way to make easy money.”
The app runs in a manner like Airbnb and Uber as described by Amargo. The hosts post about the places where the items are being stored, and the person storing the items explains what they are storing. The hosts then keeps the items in their home, providing a service that Storage Together said is cheaper and easier than using a brick-and-mortar storage facility.
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A renter has the ability to review their experience and there are penalties involved for breaking agreements.
The Storage Together team consisted of Grand Canyon University alumni and current students. They alpha tested their app with GCU students.
One student, Dominick Ju, used Storage Together and attended the event in support of it.
“It’s kind of like a win-win,” he said. “I don’t understand why this has not been a big thing before.”
Storage Together and their competitors — My Community Shares, AZRecog, Rimalu Technologies, and Akwai — presented 2-minute pitches to eight judges and an audience of around 300. The audience picked who they thought was best while the judges placed scores similar to how they are judged at the international competition, said Dominic Papa, the founder of iDP.
One of the judges was Austin Weiss, the co-founder of last year’s winning app Parkx. It has been established in Corpus Christi, Texas and El Paso. The company is based in the Valley and hopes to have a contract with Phoenix soon.
“I thought they were the best pitch. They were well rehearsed,” Weiss said. “I’ve heard about this concept before but how are they going to make this differently is my question.”
He said he would have picked My Community Share or Rimalu’s app, due to their potential for growth, over Storage Together.
Contact the reporter at chelsea.shannon@asu.edu.
