In less than two weeks, five StartUp Showcase teams will make their pitch presentations to investors for seed money, as part of this year’s new online format for the Showcase, now set to take place on Wednesday, April 29, 2020 at fairfield.edu/startup.

Team Priority Route has been working virtually with mentors and local business owners to finalize their business plan in order to debut their interactive route optimization software. The team’s product is designed to save small- and medium-sized businesses time and valuable resources when it comes to transportation.

Team member Christian Hakim ’21 is working with four engineers and two business majors to design the business plan and prototype for Priority Route. A computer science major at Fairfield, Hakim engages in business courses as part of his curriculum. As a result of one of his classes last semester, "Design and Analysis of Algorithms," he started to think about starting a business and spoke to StartUp Program Director Chris Huntley, PhD. From there, Hakim participated in fall StartUp program events including the elevator pitch competition and business model workshop, and was invited to pitch for a spot in the Showcase during the qualifier round. Along the way, six fellow Class of 2021 students joined team Priority Route: Tanner Allen, Louis Benoit, Max Boccasile, Philip Ruggirello, Joseph Scannell, and Nadav Zarmi.

Initially, Priority Route was designed as a smart waste collection software. The inspiration for the business idea came from team member Louis Benoit who worked the previous summer as a trash collector. He noticed on many stops that the trash bins were empty and that he wasted time making unnecessary stops. Benoit, Hakim, and the team came up with an idea to install sensors in trash bins and to develop software to track when the bins are full to inform pick up schedules.

From there, the team decided to focus on route optimization specifically for small- to medium-sized businesses across industries, to allow companies to maximize their resource allocation when planning transportation schedules. The team worked closely with Mike Astorino, owner of dry cleaning company Fabricare Cleaners, for valuable input to develop their prototype. The software uses Google Maps API and an algorithm to calculate customizable routes for businesses, based on parameters set by the customer.

To learn more about Team Priority Route’s business idea, save the date: Wednesday, April 29, to watch the 2020 Fairfield StartUp Showcase video series and to vote for the audience favorite at fairfield.edu/startup.