Jeff Simeon shares his smart phone bird alerts system and app that will make wild birds identification easy and revolutionize birdwatching.
A recent graduate from UCSB’s Bren School, Jeff Simeon earned a Master’s degree in Environmental Science and Management with a focus on Eco-Entrepreneurship. Birdeez, is a smart phone app that generates rare bird alerts and brings Petersen Field Guides into the 21st century. Due to geo-location, the app will already know what types of birds are most likely in your area thus immediately narrowing the list of birds of North America. By choosing among only 9 criteria, even the most casual bird watcher will have fun quickly identifying birds.
But that’s not all. Jeff and his team, Patrick Toerner and Thomas Kuo, also hope to improve bird conservation and help our nation deal with “Nature Deficit Disorder.” By making birdwatching easy, the hope is to get more people enjoying the hobby and sharing it with their children. By encouraging children to go outside and learn to observe, not only will kids get up from the games to go outside, they will learn to appreciate nature and conservation while having quality time with Mom and Dad.
The Birdeez social network brings birdwatchers together to share their finds and helps them at every step of the birdwatching experience. The birding app draws upon Cornell University’s Ornithology E-Bird database and, once a formal relationship is established, will also contribute to the collection of birdwatching data. Ultimately, the 48 million birdwatchers in the US will be able to locate and easily identify birds, then collect their sitings to share with each other and the scientific community.
The Birdeez team won first place in May, 2012, at UCSB’s New Venture Competition. During Jeff’s study at UCSB’s Bren School of Environmental Science and Management in their Eco-Entrepreneurship program, Jeff started work on Birdeez. He took the idea to the UCSB Technology Management Program’s New Venture Competition where it was refined and a skilled team assembled. The Birdeez team, including Jeff Simeon, Patrick Toener and Thomas Kuo, made the finals and was judged by panel of venture capitalists, an angel investor and serial entrepreneur. Birdeez was selected as the best market driven business and is now seeking additional funding from the community with a focus on social and environmentally minded investors. You may connect with the team at Flock@GetBirdeez.com. Be sure to like the Birdeez Facebook page where you can keep track of all new developments.
