Geek of the Week: Morgan Berman, Co-Founder and CEO of My Milkcrate
My MilkCrate is an innovative lifestyle tool that engages and rewards people for living more sustainably.
The app does this through strategic partnerships with well-respected nonprofits, enabling My MilkCrate users to support local businesses and learn about sustainability efforts in their community.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Morgan Berman, the co-creator of My MilkCrate, is a multidisciplinary designer whose mission is to promote sustainable design and weave it into the fabric of daily life.
On her way to Boston where the My Milkcrate app will be unveiled for the first time at a soft launch before going live fully in September, Morgan took some time to chat with Geekadelphia.
Geekadelphia: How did you develop the idea of My MilkCrate?
Morgan: Well, it was a combination of things. I was in grad school and I was looking for a way to tie all of this inspiration I was finding out about how to live more sustainably in the city. I previously worked at a local magazine that focused on sustainability but I was frustrated with how difficult it was for most people to make the switch to figure out how to live more sustainably. So, I wanted to do something about that and make it easier for people like me who care about living this way because there wasn’t really anything helping enough.
G: How did you come up with the name?
M: The name comes from the idea of people taking milk crates and putting them on the back of their bikes, and it’s this kind of act of renewal and repurpose and it’s the container for your local and sustainable life. And we want to be the container for all your information.
G: How did you gather all of the information to place in the app?
M: We worked with the nonprofits and brought all of their member directories into one place.
G: Would you consider that to be the most challenging aspect of designing the app?
M: No, because our partners do it for us. They give us their databases and we bring it together, so that’s actually the easiest part of designing the app in some ways.
G: What’s the overall reason that you think people should check out the app?
M: From everything I’ve ever heard from the people that we’ve talked to and the research we’ve done, people want to live their values and feel better about themselves, their future and the kind of legacy of life they lead. And the only reason why people don’t do that to the fullest extent is that they just don’t know how, they lack the inspiration. What we’re offering is the opportunity to feel good about every choice you make and where you spend your money.
G: Do you have anything that inspired you while working on the My MilkCrate app?
M: I got to watch my build her company, so that was definitely an inspiration. Getting to see that while growing up.
G: What do you “geek out” to?
M: I got pretty excited because as I kid I use to always read these Popular Science magazines and I just moved and it looks like the woman under my apartment is a similar geek to Popular Science, so I’ve been reading those in the car.
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