BOSTINNO – As cities work to get information to their residents, one startup is stepping up to the plate: Soofa, a six year-old, Cambridge-based company behind smart benches and signs that display advertisements and information to whomever happens to be walking by.
Read MoreWICKED LOCAL BROOKLINE – These aren’t your typical bulletin boards.
Soofa Signs, which offers a high-tech “neighborhood newsfeed,” received the Select Board’s go-ahead last night to pilot its signs around Brookline.
Read MoreSMART CITIES DIVE – Technology company Soofa has deployed twelve solar-powered digital message boards in Boston as part of a 60-day pilot program through Beta Blocks, an initiative run by the city and the Engagement Lab at Emerson College to encourage new approaches to community-led smart city innovation.
Read MoreSMART CITIES DIVE — The Boston-based startup and Ford challenge winner aims to prove that a social and sustainable city is just as important as a "smart" one.
In 2014, three female co-founders from the MIT Media Lab and Harvard Graduate School of Design launched Soofa, a tech company focused on bringing smart, citizen-centric and solar-powered infrastructure to cities across the globe.
Read MoreGOV TECH — Beating out more than 130 proposals, Soofa has won a challenge by Ford Motor Co. to improve mobility in Miami-Dade County, Fla. — and $50,000 to go along with it.
Soofa, which makes solar-powered benches and informational display signs, is one of two winners of the Miami-Dade challenge in Ford’s City of Tomorrow program. Soofa plans on putting up its signs — which use the same kind of e-ink displays found in e-readers — in up to three neighborhoods in the county.
Read MoreCURBED ATLANTA — Intown residents may have noticed unusual, somewhat space-age-looking new signs popping up in Little Five Points, Kirkwood, Inman Park, and other neighborhoods around Atlanta.
Well, get used to them, as these new digital bulletin boards are the wave of the future for community and business outreach at the grassroots level, according to their inventors.
Read MoreATLANTA INNO — With unlimited content in our digital age, getting the word out in a community is a much more difficult task, especially in a metro like Atlanta.
Enter Soofa, the MIT-born startup bringing smart signs to urban neighborhoods in a trend to make smart cities happen. The Cambridge-based company has recently deployed signs in two Atlanta neighborhoods, Little Five Points and the Old Fourth Ward, with a few signs around co-working space FlatironCity. Soofa plans to debut in Inman Park, Ponce City Market, Kirkwood, East Atlanta Village and further downtown, according to Soofa CEO and Co-Founder Sandra Richter.
Read MoreXCONOMY — Should a bench be more than just a place to sit? For Soofa and its customers, the answer is yes.
The Cambridge, MA-based startup makes solar-powered, sensor-equipped benches that double as charging stations for phones and other devices. These “smart” benches can also help municipalities and other partners measure the amount of activity in parks, bus stops, public plazas, and other communal spaces, the company says. Soofa also makes signs that it bills as the “bulletin board of the 21st century.” The solar-powered, Internet-connected signs have digital displays that provide real-time info to passerby about public transit and local events, as well as run advertisements.
Read MoreBOSTINNO — You may have seen Soofa’s smart benches and signs in Kendall Square and Faneuil Hall, and they’re certainly neat to look at. Plus, the signs can provide helpful information, such as MBTA arrival times, directions to nearby attractions and local event listings. The benches let you charge your smartphone. But is that all there is to Soofa?
While the Cambridge-based startup is putting a modern spin on city amenities, there’s a lot more happening under the hood, with the goal of using sensor data collected by the benches and signs to help cities with urban planning. The MIT-born startup, which raised a $2.5 million seed round from local venture capital firms Underscore.VC, Accomplice and Pillar last year, also has big ideas of how these modern amenities can transform spaces.
Read MoreENGADGET — Smart cities of tomorrow will run on information, with various pieces of connected urban infrastructure all sharing data amongst themselves. But what sharing information amongst the citizenry? That's where the Soofa Sign, a community bulletin board for the 21st century, comes in.
Read MoreLAS VEGAS PATCH — You might notice some cutting edge technology the next time you're downtown waiting for a bus. It doesn't sound like much, but it's all in the name of sustainability.
Mayor Carolyn Goodman will announce the installation of smart signs along the free Downtown Loop on Thursday morning. The signs are being provided by Soofa - a Massachusetts-based technology company which aims to "Create urban ecosystems that inspire."
Read MoreVISIONECT — Soofa, a spinoff of MIT, has joined forces with Visionect to activate public spaces in Boston. The result is the Soofa Sign, the bulletin board of the 21st century. The solar-powered smart urban furniture uses electronic paper to share information with the local community, contributing to the city’s sustainability goals. All this achieved by just four bolts.
Read MoreCITY OF BOSTON — Friday, September 23, 2016 - Mayor Martin J. Walsh today revealed a solar powered Soofa Sign in Samuel Adams Park, located outside of Faneuil Hall. A companion to the screen unveiled on City Hall Plaza in July, the Soofa Sign will provide visitors to Faneuil Hall and Samuel Adams Park with information on local events and City services, and encourage visitors and residents to engage with each other and the City through social media. Through a partnership between the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics (MONUM) and Soofa, the prototype sign is the first of its kind in the world.
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