Executive Summary Weego.org is a non-profit program that fights climate change while easing the economic burden on Americans by facilitating carpool match ups. The concept of weego.org was born in China. Living in Beijing, Founder Maia Patrick Donohue was forced to wear a surgical mask outdoors to cope with the thick smog. Once a bicycle-friendly culture, cars now flood the roads of Beijing. So many cars, in fact, that to present a clean city during the televised 2008 Olympics, the city actually shut down factories and kept millions of cars off the roads. It was only a temporary fix. After the crowds went home, the cars and problems returned. Vehicle overpopulation was rapidly reaching a critical mass. The most populous nation in the world was beginning to overindulge. Donohue returned to the United States convinced that Beijing’s vehicle overpopulation problem could lie in America’s future. The solution needed to be long-term and sustainable, rather than the “band-aid” approach Beijing used for the Olympics. In America, almost every car contains a single person: the driver. This fills our roads with more cars and therefore more pollution. The development of an easy to use carpooling system will reduce the number of vehicles, smog, and congestion and provide a sustainable solution. The two hurdles to overcome are: carpool complexity and the need for practical technology. Weego.org provides solutions to both hurdles: 1. Carpool complexity. Finding a carpool match-up means balancing three variables: starting points, ending points, and schedules. Weego.org offers destination maps* based on the latter two, so that every customer on the map is going to the same place at the same time. Customers only need to plan for a single variable: the starting point. * Destination map: a map of various users going to a single place at the same time. 2. Need for practical technology. The weego.org system is based on understanding the habits and behaviors of carpoolers. Weego.org destination maps are accessed through a web browser like Internet Explorer. The screen shows a city street map, with icons to indicate carpool pickup and destination points. A variety of customer-friendly tools (gas calculator, social networking features, etc) makes the weego.org system easy to navigate and use. In addition to reducing emissions by carpooling, weego.org also improves the environment by its unique Wisconsin Trees initiative. The weego.org system will track the miles each customer carpools, and reward the customer with tree points. Twice a year, customers cash their tree points for real trees planted in your region of Wisconsin. While designed for use by individual customers, weego.org is marketed towards corporations, churches, and other high population subscribers. The principle reason for this is practicality. By offering destination maps based around these subscribers, users of weego.org can find multiple other carpoolers going to the same place at the same time quickly and efficiently. Pressure on employers to simplify commuting in order to retain a talented workforce is another reason the service is marketed primarily toward corporations. As commuting costs continue to be volatile, employers must find new solutions or lose talented workers to jobs with shorter commutes. In addition to employee retention, weego.org offers higher morale, charitable good works, and flexibility to its users. Participation from corporations means weego.org’s main source of income will be subscription fees. Two other sources of revenue round out our economic plan: coordinate ads and sponsorships. Coordinate ads are minute icons on the destination map, similar to icons for hotels and restaurants on a tourist map. Weego.org will eventually feature twelve community sponsors at a minimum of $5,000 each. Funds raised from these sponsors will be used to sustain and expand the weego.org system. Upon completion, weego.org will begin a six-month pilot period with six local businesses. This process is designed to fine-tune the system before unveiling it to Wisconsin as a whole.
