Jesus Olive, who graduated from New College in May, is already well on his way to professional prosperity.The day after the 2020 commencement, the computer science/philosophy student publicly launched a mobile app called Prosperfully—a “personal growth companion” that allows users to track goals and document achievements. Olive developed the concept with the $3,000 first-place award he won at New College’s inaugural Social Entrepreneurship Conference last September.
“A large part of my thesis included building a personal development mobile app that instilled the philosophical principles I discussed in the written portion of my thesis,” said Olive, who is currently working as freelance mobile and web developer in his hometown of Miami. “I pitched the app at the New College conference and, now that the pitch idea has become reality, anyone can download the app. So I want it to reach more people in the community.”
Olive built the multiplatform journaling application, which is deployable on iOS and Android, using Flutter SDK open-source software. When users download the app, the experience starts with a journal that states “Write down the daily acts you’re proud of and the ones you want to improve on.” The next step is the “score” component: “Give a score, be it positive or negative, to each act you enter.” And then comes the “improve” step with “witness your personal growth with our analytics of your progress.”
Olive is grateful for the entrepreneurship conference at New College that helped catapult this venture. Two of his fellow New College students, Daniel Schell and Emiliano Espinosa, founded the event to inspire students to pursue meaningful, self-propelled, lucrative careers.
More than a dozen business leaders spoke at the conference, including keynote speaker Joy Randels, the founder/CEO of New Market Partners. Students (including those from New College, Ringling College of Art and Design, the University of South Florida (USF) Sarasota-Manatee, and Pine View School) presented business ideas to a panel of investment judges.
Olive took home the prize, and the funds he earned came from USF’s Frank and Ellen Daveler Entrepreneurship Program. The initiative is open to all college students in Florida and designed “to increase their knowledge of business operations, and gain insight into the entrepreneurial process in venture creation, venture growth and venture harvesting,” according its mission statement.
Beyond Prosperfully, Olive was also one of the Android developers of an educational mobile app regarding health literacy called the “Staying Healthy Quiz” for the Florida Literacy Coalition.
“I look forward to continuing improving and growing the app and brand by developing more software aimed at supporting individuals in their personal growth journeys,” Olive said. “And I am very grateful to New College for affording me the ability to implement the intellectual ideas of philosophy into the world through the practical medium of computer science.”
For more information on Olive’s app, visit play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.prosperfully.prosperfully,apps.apple.com/us/app/better-tomorrow/id1513479563?ls=1 and prosperfully.com.
Abby Weingarten is the editor/writer in the Office of Communications & Marketing.