The Now you know mobile app.

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M.Libert / 20 Minutes

  • At the start of the year,

    20 Minutes

     presents those who will make the news in 2021 thanks to their associative action, their sports performance, their entrepreneurial spirit or their creativity.

  • Now you know is a mobile application that allows you to raise awareness and take concrete action for the climate.

  • The founders applied the principle of free donation to their project, financed through eco-responsible companies.

It's even better when it's free.

The coronavirus epidemic has tended to eclipse all other topics during the year 2020, including the environment.

Unfortunately, having said less about the climate did not mean that it was doing better.

And it is because we must continue to act to save the planet that Gabriel Vuong and Benjamin Maubacq, two students, have developed the Now you know mobile application.

An umpteenth app on the subject?

Yeah, except theirs has something extra.

The Now you know project grew up within the incubator of Edhec, a business school in Lille in which Benjamin Maubacq is pursuing a Masters 2 course. At 24, this Parisian, expatriated to Lille for his studies, has always wanted to undertake, but it was a preparatory class teacher who made him discover his way: “He made us very aware of climate issues and I quickly understood that it was the sector that had the most today to undertake ”, assures Benjamin.

Raise awareness but above all act concretely

Basically, his project was to develop an application to explain and make people aware of climate issues.

One among many others with nevertheless a big gap: "I quickly realized that awareness was not enough, that something had to be found to act really and concretely", continues the young man.

On our small scale of individuals, we can make daily efforts.

But we can also help large projects whose effects will have a strong climate impact.

This is what Now you know is betting on.

"The idea is to apply the principle of free donation to finance projects such as reforestation, ecological innovations or even scientific research", details Benjamin Maubacq.

Eco-responsible companies pay the application for a visibility service and the money is donated into a pot.

For their part, users of the app take an awareness course and then answer quizzes on the climate, which allow them to accumulate "acts".

With these "acts", they then make donations from the amount of the pot for the projects of their choice.

"These are therefore donations that cost users nothing," says the founder of the application.

While Now you know was only released in a “beta” version, it has already made it possible to finance around fifteen projects.

To do more, the start-up needs 7,500 euros, which it intends to raise through a crowdfunding campaign.

"This sum will be used to finalize the application and to communicate to reach the general public and attract more eco-responsible partner companies", assures the entrepreneur.

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  • Start-up

  • Mobile app

  • Weather

  • Society

  • Lille