#SanJoséInnovates: Taking care of home, our community, and our local news
For the latest installment of our #SanJoseInnovates profiles, we sat down to talk to Christina Andrade and Matthew Quevedo, two born and raised San Joséans looking to connect our community to the news stories that matter to them through reinventing the digital interface of how we find news.
Christina is a soon-to-be graduate of SJSU, majoring in Psychology and minoring in Human Systems Integration and Computer Science, born and raised in Berryessa. Matthew holds a bachelor’s in Political Science and is studying for a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning from SJSU; he grew up in the Seven Trees neighborhood.
We talked to them about their latest project, focused on the intersection of local news, community engagement, and geolocation technologies, called NewsBee. The interview excerpts below have been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Tell us a little bit about NewsBee: how did this all begin?
Christina: “I’ll let Matt take this one, since it’s his brainchild — I jumped in on the project a bit after.”
Matthew: “My friend and I, Andrew Demarest, we go way back to the first job we worked at Home Depot down at Blossom Hill together. We have always been tinkering, trying to invent something, make something happen. One day, we had finished playing a tennis game and we started talking about, what would happen if a fire occurred at a building right next to us? How would people learn about that happening in their community?
“Twitter wouldn’t’ be able to provide that information, because you wouldn’t likely live near the people who are on your feed, same thing with Facebook, Instagram. So, I thought, well, what if you had a map in which you geotagged the news story that would come up, so people would know, ‘This is what’s happening right here.’
“We liked that idea, we rolled with it a bit, but then we started thinking beyond just emergencies: What if we geotagged all news stories, so people know what’s happening around their community?”
Why a map, though?
C: “If I can just jump in here, when I joined: I was so fascinated by NewsBee from a psych perspective, because humans are such visual creatures. Maps are so intuitive, so visual — and that’s why I think NewsBee can be so game-changing. We know that in order to empower our community, you need people to be informed and engaged. And we know that the local news ecosystem is a huge part of that, you need to know what’s going on so you can voice your opinions on those matters and understand them. At the same time, very few people will read a newspaper or an article all the way through. With NewsBee, when you see a headline pinned on a map, it’s like, oh my — that’s right down the street from me, or in the neighborhood of someone I love: let’s figure out what’s going on!”
Completely agree. I personally love looking at maps of all types! Could you say a little more about that, about the value you think NewsBee brings and why you care about the project?
C: Yea, one of the ways we think NewsBee brings value is in revitalizing the community’s connection to a local news ecosystem. Right now, across the country, we’re seeing local newspapers struggle with their revenue streams and models. We want to re-engage people to be able to drive traffic to the local newspapers, to have them be able to invest that money back into their journalism. You think about San José, The Mercury News, I’ve heard in their heyday had about a team of 400, and now they’re down to 100. They’ve had to severely cut a lot of journalists and workers. And that affects the quality and breadth of information that you can have about local issues, issues that matter to the community.
“NewsBee, with its geographic focus, is a way for people to be more engaged about the stories around them. They can explore, they can zoom in on where their loved ones live, they could look where they live or around where they go to school and really explore and connect with local news in a different, engaging way, more than just scrolling through an endless feed.”
What are your goals or visions for the project as of now? What are your next steps?
C: “So right now, we are getting close to a minimum viable product. We have an almost fully developed application both for Android and iOS. We’re looking to beta test soon and would hope to launch mid-way through this year.
“But we don’t want to just have, like, a generic app release. Like we’ve been talking about, this project is very community centered for us. We really want to do a grassroots type of outreach: going to farmer’s markets, going to local events, reaching out to the community and just letting people know — hey there’s this new tool you can use, to find out about your local news and what’s going on in your community. Beyond that, there’s lots of different opportunities, but for now we want that community focus.”
M: “Yea, our focus really is on the community. What I think would be cool is if long term we became our own media company and hired our own journalists. But the big hope is to support the newspapers and journalism that exist today. Like Christina was mentioning, 400 to 100, in a city of a million people is rough. And The Mercury News represents more than the City of San Jose, it represents the entire South Bay. So, for now we really want to focus on driving attention to the local newspapers that are doing great work.”
Local news is so important. I’m curious, how do you think your community focus of local news ties in to this legacy of innovation and technology in the Silicon Valley?
M: “I think you actually asked us a really interesting question about innovation and Silicon Valley and being from here. The thing is, for us, we’re from here. So to us, this is more than just Silicon Valley. This is our city, this is our home.
“You know, in my community and political work, I’ve been in the neighborhoods where, you’re asking the question: ‘Did you know an election is coming up? Do you know the name of the mayor?’ And when only four out of ten people know that an election is coming up, and only one out of ten know the candidates, that’s alarming, especially for our local democracy. So for us, the first thought, beyond innovation and Silicon Valley and a business is: how do we take care of home? How do we take care of here?
“For me especially, it runs really deep. I have roots in this place. My grandpa was the one who came here to San José originally. He was a Mexican American WWII veteran who fought proudly in Europe but when he came back from the war, he went back to Texas, where he faced a lot of racism. Eventually, he moved out here, with his 8 children, for opportunity, for a chance to have a better life. So for me, this place is my home. It’s where I’m from, it’s where my family is from. It’s more than just a place of startups and technology. And that’s what drives us to build something that will help take care of our home.”
We are really inspired by Christina and Matt’s bold ideas about taking care of our home and using innovative technologies to do so. You can follow their progress on their LinkedIn page and you can check out a concept video of NewsBee here or on their site: NewsBee, local news now.
*Note: This series highlights the human stories behind some bold, innovative and emerging ideas in our city from students, city hall employees, and beyond. These profiles are not an endorsement from the Mayor’s Office for any particular product or company.
