Chimani, a Maine tech startup, got a shout-out at Google I/O. Its icon is on the top left of the slide. Pictured is Scott Huffman, Google’s VP Engineering of Search. (photo/Chimani)
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Chimani, a Maine tech startup, got some national exposure last week at Google’s annual developers conference, a high-profile event known as Google I/O.
At the two-day event, held in San Francisco, Lawrence Chang, Google’s mobile product manager, called out Chimani during a session for developers building mobile apps for Google’s Android platform.
Portland-based Chimani is a five-year-old company that’s building a series of free mobile apps for national parks and other outdoor attractions. Chimani’s apps combine the benefits of a map, guidebook and activity planner into one digital package. (For more on Chimani, read my colleague Craig Anderson’s recent profile of the company.)
Specifically, Chang highlighted Chimani’s Yosemite National Park app as an example of how mobile-first app publishers can integrate Google’s app indexing technology so their content is discovered during Google search queries.
Google I/O is the tech giant’s opportunity to unveil its latest innovations, the future of its Android devices and other cool tech gadgets (remember Google Glass?). Tickets to the event sell out in minutes and millions watch the event via a live-stream. It also receives lots of media attention.
Kerry Gallivan, Chimani’s co-founder and CEO, said being featured at Google I/O is “the ultimate goal” of any Andorid app developer. It’s also further evidence that Maine’s tech scene is no longer in the shadows.
“Being featured by Google during their exclusive developer conference validates that innovative, high-tech startups can exist anywhere,” said Gallivan, who was able to attend the conference. “Of the millions of apps available, Chimani was literally one of the first companies to apply Google’s technology of app indexing – which is why they reached out to include us in a select groups of companies to help them improve the technology further.
“This type of validation from the world’s most important technology company helps Chimani establish itself as a top-tier app publisher who also happens to want to be based in Maine,” Gallivan said.
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