Heinz Alum Developing Socially Motivated Mobile App

Release Date: Apr 09, 2009

H. John Heinz III College alumnus Lily Liu (MSPPM ’06) recently founded PublicStuff in an effort to facilitate the connection of people to their local government services and representatives.

Now, Liu and her colleagues are working to develop a mobile software application that will enable users to submit service requests, gather community data and make meaningful connections with their leaders, community organizations and neighbors. Their idea recently ranked fourth in a national pitch competition, and the team is currently vying for a top spot in NetSquared.org’s N2Y4 Mobile Challenge.

The deadline to submit your vote for the NetSquared contest is Friday, April 10. To learn more about the mobile application and vote for PublicStuff’s idea, visit the organization’s updates page.

Liu credits her Heinz College education for providing the solid entrepreneurial tools critical for launching PublicStuff.

“With start-up organizations, the founder will oftentimes have the task of doing a variety of different things—from budgeting, to website development, to marketing, to writing content, to even database management,” said Liu. “And Heinz College really provided a strong foundation and the necessary skills I needed to begin this new journey.”

Prior to her time at Heinz College, Liu held several management level positions in government agencies, ranging from federal to local government. In addition to co-founding a successful, youth-let inner city tutoring program in Pittsburgh, PA, she has also led a civic participation campaign around environmental issues for the Sichuan Environmental Protection Bureau in Chengdu, China. Liu specializes in working on socially based issues and civic participation for both governments and non-profit organizations.

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