Pocket Points is a mobile app that was developed in 2014 by Mitch Gardner and Rob Richardson. Both were

California State University, Chico California State University, Chico (Chico State) is a public university in Chico, California. It was founded in 1887 as one of about 180 "normal schools" founded by state governments in the 19th century to train teachers for the rapidly growing ...

students and members of

Sigma Chi Sigma Chi () International Fraternity is one of the largest North American social Fraternities and sororities, fraternities. The fraternity has 244 active undergraduate chapters and 152 alumni chapters across the United States and Canada and has ...

fraternity. The mobile app gives students rewards for not using their phones during class. Students open up the app, lock their phones, and start accumulating points. Points are then used to get discounts at local and online businesses.

History

Richardson realized the problem of smartphone abuse in classrooms as he was sitting in the back of a large lecture. The initial idea was to have professors reward their students with extra credit for not using their phones. After performing a number of

focus group A focus group is a group interview involving a small number (sometimes up to ten) of demographically predefined participants. Their reactions to specific researcher/evaluator-posed questions are studied. Focus groups are used in market researc ...

s they received negative feedback from professors. They found that professors did want their students more engaged, but didn't want the additional responsibility of monitoring their phone use. After doing research on student incentives, the two of them found that students were heavily motivated by food-related discounts. This led them to their current model: Rewarding students with discounted items at local businesses surrounding each campus. The

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version of app launched at

in September 2014. After an angel investment, the company expanded to an additional eleven schools in spring 2015. Some of these schools included California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo and

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

. After securing

seed funding Seed money, also known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor puts capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' suggests ...

, Pocket Points is available on both

and

Android Android most commonly refers to: *Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), a mobile operating system primarily developed by Google * Android TV, a operating system developed ...

to students at over 200 schools in the United States and Canada.

Features

The app uses geo-fence technology to know whether students are on or off campus. Students are only able to earn points if they are on campus in academic buildings. Points cannot be earned at the school gym or in dorm rooms. When students are on campus they open the app, lock their phones, and begin earning points. The longer their phones remain locked, the more points they earn. Students will earn roughly one point every twenty minutes, but the rate at which points are earned varies. The more students using the app on each specific campus, the faster points are earned. After accumulating enough points, students can choose from a variety of different discounts at local and online businesses from the app's "Gift Page." The "Gift Page" also includes a map where students can see the location of each participating local business. The app is also equipped with a "Leaderboard" where students can see who has earned the most points that day, week, etc.

Demographic

The app's main demographic consists of college students between 17 and 23 years of age.

References

External links

*{{Official website, 1=http://www.pocketpoints.com/ 2014 establishments in California