- HAGS managed to secure financial funding of $1 million since its launch.
- HAGS app lets high school students collect virtual yearbook signatures.
Since the onset of COVID-19, the daily lives of people from all walks of life have been disrupted. This is no exception to schools, colleges, and universities. For the fear of the virus, teaching, meetings, and conferences are conducted online.
Amidst this, two youngsters managed to create a yearbook app that has taken the school cultures in the US by storm.
Since schools are closed because of the pandemic, the app developers Suraya Shivji and Jameel Shivji did not want students to miss out on the yearbook signatures. Hence, they created the HAGS app.
How did HAGS come into being?
HAGS was created out of boredom while staying at home during the pandemic and Suraya and Jameel didn’t want students to miss out on the yearbook signatures. The app is being redesigned so that the students can collect the physical copies of their signed yearbooks.
“Yearbooks are an important tradition that adds excitement and unity to the end of the school year,” Suraya Shivji tells Dazed, and explains that she and her brother Jameel Shivji – along with 19-year-old, Melbourne-based developer James Dale – have tried to keep the app as close to actual experience as far as it was possible.
You can collect the yearbook signatures only using Snapchat. Moreover, the developers also credit the high schoolers for this app. They have contributed largely by offering their ideas and concepts of the yearbook.
Jameel and Phoebe Bayer managed to get input from over 200 high school students. They also considered highschoolers that were TikTok users.
Because of its huge success with the high school students, firms like GV, BoxGroup, and various angel investors have invested around $1 million for the HAGS app. All the financial profits will go to Know Your Rights Camp.
This camp is responsible for offering resources to the Black and Brown community. It includes legal support for people running a protest against, a victim of, police brutality.
