Newswise — SPOKANE, Wash. – The recent social media trend of challenging friends to dump buckets of ice over their heads for the ALS Association has inspired Gonzaga University senior Scott Alderson and his brother Matt, a Seattle University freshman. The brothers have developed an Apple app called 1Up Challenges to take such competitions to the next level.

The Alderson brothers have spent the last two years developing 1Up Challenges, which launched recently thanks to help from the students in Gonzaga’s New Venture Lab. Users of the app – individuals, corporations or organizations – are able to create challenges and watch as people post videos of themselves responding to challenges.

“It’s a way to get people connected on a competitive level,” says Scott Alderson, a business administration major.

A company in India made the first prototype for the app, which has since been recoded by Limelyte Technology, a Spokane-based digital content delivery company. The 1Up’s interface provides each user with a video feed homepage, a challenge button, and a personal profile.

In fall semester 2014, a team of six students from Gonzaga’s New Venture Lab took on the Aldersons’ project. Alex Flake (’16), team manager for this project, has been a part of the NVL for three years and calls the project a diamond in the rough.

“I got to see Scott put to work the ideas that we brought him and get really excited about it,” Flake said. “It really got us engaged and excited about the project and it brought me back to the NVL this semester.”

The NVL helped rename and rebrand 1Up, implemented “down voting” (rejecting) and “up voting” (approving) challenges, and steered the focus of the app toward larger scale corporations.

“They’re very passionate about it,” says Flake. “They’re young, they’re excited – they really want to make it happen and they’ve done the work.”

The app is free and available to download at: https://itunes.apple.com/US/app/id972258114?mt=8.

For more information, please contact Scott Alderson via email at [email protected].

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