Page 64 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 93, No. 4 Summer 2013

elationships are all about con-
nections, whether in person, via
phone or text, or, in these days
of instant and pervasive communication,
through some form of social media. As
we saw on Anniversary Weekend, alumni
come back to see one another, to gather
with friends.
In that spirit, it is fitting to feature the
recent innovative work of Ben Kaplan ’11.
The Holy Cross junior used the energy
around social interaction to launch an
app that brings people together. In the
spring of 2013, Kaplan was named the
winner of the inaugural Holy Cross
Shark Tank competition, where he was
recognized for his social networking app
“WiGo.” The acronym – pronounced “we
go” – stands for “Who Is Going Out” (and,
alternately, “What Is Going On”).
“As a freshman, I quickly realized there
lacked a simple, efficient way for college
students to organize their rapidly evolving
social plans,” explains Kaplan, who will
take a gap year from Holy Cross to work
on the app full-time. “I wondered why
there wasn’t a platform for people to
say if they are going out, and where. So,
I designed it myself.”
With the help of a development team
from his hometown of Burlington, Vt.,
Kaplan created WiGo, which launched
exclusively on the Holy Cross campus in
January. The app allows students at the
same school to give access to their social
plans for the evening – in real time. While
the software defaults each morning to
a “not-going-out” status, users can add
and update their plans and allow only
those in their network to access them.
The social buzz builds throughout each
day and users can decide between, say,
a night at a bar, cheering at a basketball
game, or a quiet evening in the library,
assured by their friends’ statuses of com-
pany. They can interact directly on the
app via chats, and can encourage each
other be social by sending friends a
“tap” an e-nudge Kaplan coined himself.
In the first three weeks after its launch,
WiGo had been downloaded by nearly
half of Holy Cross’s 2,800 students, even
thought it was limited to iPhone users
and was advertised only through word of
mouth and a few flyers. Throughout the
development process, Kaplan considered
all the efficiencies required by college
students, also taking privacy concerns
into account. WiGo includes extensive
privacy settings and other filters to
create the desired level of security for
individual users.
SPOTLIGHT
“I designed the app as a living, breathing
college student” says Kaplan. “It’s practical
in that it eliminates group texts, shows
you who is going out, and connects you
with them in a non-awkward way. Basically,
WiGo maps out how the night is evolving,
and you can accept or decline people at
any time.”
For the last year, Kaplan’s efforts fit the
stereotypical college start-up profile –
working from his dorm room with limited
resources, between classes, studying, and
practices with the Holy Cross men’s hockey
team. But, more recently, he has found
investors to back the progress of WiGo
for the foreseeable future. In May, Kaplan
met with Kayak.com founder Paul English,
who listened to Kaplan’s pitch and decided
immediately to invest in WiGo.
Kaplan is now headquartered at the
Boston office of English’s new start-up
hatchery Blade, with multiple resources
available to him, including a tech team
of ex-Facebook, Kayak, and Zappos de-
velopers and designers. The plan is to
launch WiGo nationally in mid-August,
with a specific focus at about two dozen
New England-based colleges. Kaplan
has received seed-stage investments
from others, including LIDS founder
Ben Fischman, New England Patriots
defensive tackle Vince Wilfork, and
James van Riemsdyk of the Toronto
Maple Leafs.
“There’s a real buzz surrounding WiGo
right now,” Kaplan says. “Students are
excited to unlock it at their school. I can’t
wait to show them what’s next.”
Who is going out? Ben Kaplan ’11
by Jana F. Brown
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