About Pinoy California Mobile App

The Problem

The status of more than 763,000 small businesses in California, including around 1,000 Filipino-American stores, are at risk because of the economic shutdown brought on by the coronavirus disease pandemic. There are about 1.5 million Filipinos living in California, comprising 50% of the Filipino-Americans in the United States. Fil-Ams, whose language of “Tagalog” is considered the most commonly spoken other than English or Spanish in California, are facing uncertainty on how to move forward in the new normal that is expected to prevail even after the lockdown period.

Our Solution

The Pinoy California platform was developed to help and enable Fil-Am store owners to continue operations despite the current COVID-19 situation.

The mobile app has community features wherein a store owner can reach out to nearby customers without having them physically go to their store. Owners can also manage their business from the comfort of their homes. This set up is very helpful in keeping social distancing and at the same time allows a store to operate its businesses with minimal workforce.

Aside from the ease of communication with customers, the app allows business owners to create offers and organize virtual meet-ups to increase engagement with their neighborhood. They can also create push campaigns to be shown to nearby customers and random users within the Californian state.

Mission

Our team aims to assist Filipino-American businesses engage with their neighborhood using a modernized, remote approach. This will enable their local community to practice the "Bayanihan" Filipino value, in a virtual way. We hope this mission will help ease the uncertainties felt by the Asian community in the United States due to COVID-19.