New website showcases local events
New website showcases local events
Staff Reports
Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012 at 9:47am
Northeast Indiana has a new online clearinghouse for information of interest to area millennials.
The Hapn.co website is run by half a dozen business partners in that 15- to 25-year-old age range who met each other at M2020 Spark Tank, a project development event held this summer and sponsored by Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership.
The site will focus on providing the most up-to-date information about events, activities, entertainment and recreation currently happening or scheduled to take place in the near future. Businesses interested in developing their millennial customer base will be able to provide information such as as the hours they are open and specials they offer on the site’s business profile pages.
And a geolocater feature will help interested Hapn.co visitors learn which of the businesses are nearest to them at the moment.
"It was great coming together with five other millennials that I didnt know at the Millennial 2020 Spark Tank," Josh Smith, one of the founders of Hapn.co and an employee at Fort Wayne Trails, said in the website’s launch announcement.
"We've been hard at work for three months making sure this website is functional in order to bring together millennials and businesses."
A blog at Hapn.co said the concept for the site grew out of an idea Steve Batzka pitched at the M2020 Spark Tank event for a website with millennial recommendations on things to do in the area.
"This is a great way for businesses to showcase themselves to millennials right now. There are things to do here," Batzka said in the announcement. "We just haven't discovered them all yet, and Hapn.co wants to help northeast Indiana do that."
The announcement said a recent presentation on Hapn.co went over well with an NIRP investor board.
"The Regional Opportunities Council was very impressed with the Hapn.co project and the innovation of the Hapn.co team," Katy Silliman, director of NIRP’s Vision 2020 initiative, said in the announcement.
She added: "Connecting area millennials with our region's leaders is just one of the ways Millennial 2020 is working to increase the attachment millennials have to our region and further develop, attract and retain their talent."
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