Calester

Jul 26, 2013

Calester is a startup that was founded by Mohamed El Mahallawy and Tristan Toye, a duo from Toronto, Canada. Calester is currently working out of the StartFast Venture Accelerator program in Syracuse, New York. They were selected as one out of five teams out of 1,050 applicants that were screened for the 2013 program. Mahallawy told me that the idea for Calester came from the idea of making a calendar that is social. Mahallawy and Toye are Ruby on Rails programmers that met at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. “We believed that many parts of our lives have become social and the ‘follow’ and be ‘followed’ model,” said Mahallawy. “So we figured why not do the same with calendars? Why not follow friends, family and organizations to get a curated list of events?”  The problem is that people have too many problems with their own calendars to care about a social calendar so they pivoted to solve the problem that calendars have as a whole. Calester can help you find events based on when you are free and your interests. Calester has a similar model as Songza for matching events. Mahallawy and Toye believe that you should be able to pick events that you enjoy frequenting just like your music. Calester matches your interest selected and let’s you know if you’re busy during the event or have something conflicting just in case.