By Audrey Niblo
Staff Reporter
Do you ever get home and suddenly realize that not only are you hungry, but you’re also out of something like paper towels?
There is a new web application coming on the scene called ProntoPlate that is ready to help you out of your dilemma.
Currently, the food ordering market is overrun by platforms such as UberEats, GrubHub, Seamless, and DoorDash all across the United States. However, ProntoPlate will be competing with the larger food ordering platforms.
The idea for this new platform came from Biagio Barone and his wife Gina Rizzuto, owner of Biagio’s Osteria, an Italian Restaurant in Stratford.
“This initiative was from owner of the Biagios Osteria, which is an Italian restaurant located in Stratford,” said graduate student Jignesh Togadiya.“He wanted an application managed by his organization that provides the same services as GrubHub, but he wanted to add more services than Grubhub.”
It takes a great deal of work in order to produce an application not only in the classroom but outside of it as well.
“This is the result of hard work and guidance of Professor Kaya. It requires learning new tools and technologies to implement the ideas into real-world solutions,” said graduate student Mayank Patel.
Not only does it require learning new tools and technologies, it requires a great amount of time and dedication.
Togadiya said,” Creating an application involves all the procedure and processes that are needed by software development, which includes information gathering, project planning, analysis, design and implementation, testing and production infrastructure setup, and application maintenance,” said Togadiya.
The application process began for the students by getting a better understanding of what Biagio wanted.
Students then began meeting everyday on campus to work on the project.
“Grubhub or UberEats are our biggest competitors. However our app will offer some unique features,” said computer science Professor, Tolga Kaya.
ProntoPlate will be available first as a website, and then will later be accessible as an application for both IOS and Android.
“Currently we’ve developed a web app which can be used in both mobile devices and on computers. It’ll be made available for Android and IOS later on,” said graduate student Aswin Babu Chelladurai.
Good news for people who are watching their wallets-applicants will not be charged an application fee. “The web app is free to use and order food. Even in the future when a mobile app is made available, it will be free,” said Chelladurai.
ProntoPlate is still in the very early stages of development, and as of right now only has a few local restaurants on the website, but that will change in the future.
“Several local and chain restaurants are lined up to be vendors on the app,” said Kaya.
The application will be controlled by Biagio and his organization. They will ultimately make the decision as to which local businesses will be on the application.
“Based on the location input of the user, all the restaurants around 8 miles will be listed, from which the user can order food and have it delivered. The user can also share their food orders on social media,” said Chelladurai.
While this web application is similar to others in some areas, one of the differences is that ProntoPlate is designed to sell to Sacred Heart students.
