20 Aug Meet the 2021 Residency Team, Tempugo
Tempugo Selected for 2021 CivTechSA Residency to Address Sustaining Business
in the Face of Construction Barriers in the City
Technologically-focused startup Tempugo has been selected for this year’s Residency, which will launched on July 28. Tempugo will create a solution to solve how our local businesses can communicate vital information to customers during periods of construction so that customers can continue to access and support the businesses and navigate barriers to entry.
“The selection of our Residency team is such a critical one for the local community, especially with this particular challenge with the Public Works Department,” said Geekdom Programs Manager Leslie Chasnoff. “After all of the challenges businesses, their owners, and employees faced with the pandemic and our unexpected freeze and snowstorms this year, it is vital for us to find ways to control what we can when it comes to communication and ongoing barriers like construction and other barricades. We feel strongly about Tempugo’s experience and the forward-thinking ideas they have to solve this challenge that will have long-term impact on San Antonio and our business community.”
The challenge setup Tempugo will be solving for is as follows: Construction, routine maintenance, and utility emergencies can negatively affect businesses due to road closures, barricades, and a disruption to their accessibility. Customers often do not know about these instances before venturing out to the businesses, and often do not have the necessary information to navigate a business that is still open and accessible even when it appears to not be. This can lead to major loss in revenue, and long-term customer gains that affect businesses beyond the time of the obstruction.
“The question we want the Tempugo team to answer is, ‘How can businesses communicate vital information to customers during periods of construction, so customers know that they are open, and how to navigate any physical barriers?,” said Eddie Johnson III, the City of San Antonio’s Department of Innovation Performance & Management Specialist. “The continued growth and progress of our city is directly connected to flourishing and thriving local businesses, so we want to ensure that we are finding solutions to pave the way to improved communication, and we can’t wait to see what technology Tempugo develops to do this.”
The Residency duration will come to completion on October 20, after which the solution will be presented to the City leaders and community. A public demo day event showcasing their proposed solution to the challenge will be hosted during the 2021 San Antonio Startup Week.
Tempugo designs, develops and deploys multi-disciplinary, social innovation action research and purpose driven ventures. Its mission is to create disproportionate impact for people and organizations through social innovation action research, products and services at the intersection of emerging yet ethical technologies, novel design thinking methods and techniques and open strategy processes and practices.