BGSU students create public good through internship with local rideshare company

With financial assistance from the Thompson Working Family Scholarship, Tyler Baum was able to pursue a degree in software engineering

By Branden Ferguson

Growing up in the village of Cygnet, located outside of Bowling Green, Tyler Baum developed a passion for working on computers. He fell in love with the idea of building and coding his own ideas into a computer.

As a software engineering student at Bowling Green State University, he is now making that dream a reality and working to better the Bowling Green community through his internship.

Baum and Ewen Warman, a fellow BGSU software engineering student, are interning this summer at ZiggyZooms, a ridesharing company in Bowling Green with a mission to decrease DUIs and drunk-driving-related incidents. The two met through the Thompson Working Families Scholarship Program.

"Having Tyler and Ewen together has resulted in a dramatic increase in productivity across our workforce," said BGSU alumnus Cameron Parke '23, CEO of ZiggyZooms. "From the start, they realized our old way of dispatching for dispatchers was incredibly inefficient. We were manually texting rides out to drivers before Ewen and Tyler identified a need for a system that is built and designed for ZiggyZooms."

Using knowledge and principles learned in class, Baum and Warman developed the Dispatcher app, making the rideshare process smoother and easier for everyone involved.

"After three short months, Ewen and I have developed two apps to help ZiggyZooms," said Baum. "The Dispatcher app was designed to give the dispatcher (the person taking calls for ZiggyZooms) a template they can fill out with client information, ride details, pickup and drop off locations, and any food the client ordered. The app allows dispatchers to submit the form, resulting in a ride being created and a text being sent to the driver."

The second app the two created was a financial calculator that automatically calculates pay for the employees based off the database created with their first app. Baum said the addition of the financial calculator has cut down time spent on calculating from a few hours to a few minutes and has even caught many mistakes that were made previously.

Baum and Warman are ZiggyZooms' first-ever interns, and their impact has been appreciated by Parke.

"Having interns for the first time, we were not sure what to expect," said Parke. "Then we bring in not one, but two BGSU students and they develop the dispatcher and financial calculator applications. Ewen and Tyler have streamlined everything, making it more cost-effective and ultimately making ZiggyZooms more scalable."

Hard work and creative design have not only earned Baum internship credits and allowed him to hone his computer skills but also provided him with the opportunity to make a difference.

"This internship has allowed me to utilize computer science skills while also having a positive impact," said Baum. "Working at ZiggyZooms has provided me with peace of mind that I'm bettering my community and possibly saving lives."

With additional app designs underway, Baum and Warman are preparing to begin their senior year in the same way they concluded their junior year — as friends and Thompson Scholars working for ZiggyZooms.

Baum's local impact and college experience were made possible thanks to the Thompson Working Families Scholarship program, one of the largest non-endowed scholarship programs of its kind in the nation that supports students from modest backgrounds by covering much of the cost of tuition while still requiring a financial investment in earning their degree.

"If Robert and Ellen Thompson didn't invest in my future by offering me a life-changing scholarship, I wouldn't be going to college," Baum said. "After seeing the holistic approach of support, engagement and service, my expectations of the Thompson scholarship program were blown away. They provided me with more than financial assistance; they provided me with a unique opportunity.

"Without the Thompsons, I likely never would have gone to college and therefore never would have met Ewen. Had we not become friends, we likely wouldn't have collaborated to create apps during our internship. I'm excited to continue working with ZiggyZooms, and I can't wait to see what we do next."  

Impressed with the work Baum and Warman have accomplished in such a short amount of time, Parke hopes to keep the two of them at ZiggyZooms for as long as possible.

"We would love to see them be a part of the ZiggyZooms team," he said. "The sky is the limit, and I look forward to seeing what they can accomplish."