U
D

Conversation

the

11/17/11 | Uncategorized

Social Good Startups Fertility Planit, Local Orbit, Autitouch, OllieMe

By Angelina Strosahl (Co-Founder, DonationPay)
I’ve now written quite a few words on how Astia and it’s dynamic community have impacted us here at DonationPay, but I haven’t talked specifically about the other business owners I encountered during the workshop week. The 2011 Astia ‘class’ is truly full of spectacularly talented, generous and innovative men and women; I felt very privileged to get to know everyone and be on the receiving end of their support and guidance.

Though Astia is an incubator for for-profit businesses, there were many I encountered during the program week who have socially conscious missions and I thought I’d share a few of my favorite examples:

Fertility Planit
Fertility Planit is the social network for people around the world who want to start families. Founded by Karin Thayer after her own experience with fertility treatments and the process of having her (now 6 month old!) son; she’s created a supportive online network where people can support each other, share resources, write reviews on related goods and services and generally get connected to the community. Fertility Planit supports the desire to have a family regardless of gender, relationship status, religious background or sexual orientation. . . which is, obviously, awesome!

Local Orbit
Local Orbit is totally rad! In their own words:

Local Orbit is a new way to buy food and other local goods direct from producers in your community. Our marketplaces offer a diverse selection of local produce, meat, fish, dairy products, eggs, baked goods, grains, prepared foods, personal care products and specialty items.

Farmers manage both wholesale and retail sales through a simple business dashboard. They can sell their products in multiple markets from a central account.

Consumers pick up their orders from a central location, or hub. Wholesale orders are delivered to the business.

Hubs are run by farmers markets, entrepreneurs, farmers co-ops, community organizations, institutions and businesses who are working to expand access to local food in their communities. They manage each local marketplace, approve sellers, and work with Local Orbit’s marketing tools to promote sales.

Check them out immediately, if you love local food or if you’re closet hippies, like us.

Autitouch

Founded by the awesome Freena, Autitouch helps speed diagnoses of autism using intuitive software. From their website:

We develop intuitive software (through a Natural User Interface a.k.a. NUI) on multitouch platforms. This software makes it possible for children starting the age of 3 to “make contact with” and “communicate through” hardware like e.g. the Microsoft Surface. Per their website:

Our mission is to develop intuitive software to aid in diagnostics and treatment for children and adolescents with autism and/or related disorders, with help of hardware based on multitouch technology, e.g. Microsoft Surface. Our focus lies on improved diagnostics and new treatment methods for development of social and communication skills. In other words, stimulate (spontaneous) social behavior and communication skills (collaboration).

It’s the Autitouch vision to, in time, make mulitouch diagnostic and treatment methods useful to a broader audience then is described in our mission statement. Other age groups, other disorders, supplemental techmology and an ongoing expansion of our market. It’s the Autitouch vision to be one of the leading companies in the world to build intuitive software for diagnostics and treatment of autism and related disorders using multitouch technology.

So awesome, right?

OllieMe
OllieMe is a new social network for teens looking to engage in a productive online space. They are a teen-only mobile and online community, organized around networking and gaming concepts that kids can understand and get behind. They’re in beta testing now, so if you know any interested teenagers, send them over to Ollie to become beta testers!

That about wraps it up: our experience with Astia was all-around amazing and it helped us feel much more connected to the business community, as well as providing a lighted path for us to follow as DonationPay grows up.

This post was originally posted on DonationPay’s blog.

About the guest blogger: Angelina “AJ” Strosahl is Co-Founder of DonationPay, an innovative, affordable and agile online fundraising service for non-profit organizations and community groups. She blogs about the non-profit sector, with a focus on technology, social network marketing and other random stuff that strikes her fancy. Angelina is passionate about helping non-profits optimize their online fundraising potential. When she’s not at work, she’s usually playing Scrabble, writing, or hiking with her dogs. Contact her at aj@donationpay.org.

Editor

Editor

The Switch Editorial Team.

Straight to your inbox.

The best content on the future faces of tech and startups.

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

SHARE THIS STORY

NEW COHORT STARTS JANUARY 2024

Join the Angel Sessions

Develop strategic relationships, build skills, and increase your deal flow through our global angel group and investing course.

RELATED ARTICLES
[yarpp]