🚫 OTAs Suck ✅ Building a Book Direct, Decentralized, Open-OTA ➜ 🚀 Operators Get Direct Bookings ✈️ Travelers Get Rewards for Booking Direct 💰 Anyone Who Refers Travelers Owns Them & the Revenue Stream They Generate.

🐥 I'm a startup founder, launching a direct booking travel platform for the AI agent era.

Why? Today, Online Travel Agent (OTA) commissions are draining 10's of billions of dollars out of the travel ecosystem. They enrich "Big Tech" and "Big Travel", at the expense of everyone else. I know because I helped them do it. For years I was a super-affiliate of Expedia and other big OTAs. I fed $100m+ in hotel bookings to the OTAs, generating $10m in commissions, but adding little of value to the ecosystem.

Now, I'm building a new travel distribution platform and protocol that enables travelers and their AI agents bypass the OTA middlemen and book direct.

👇 Want to be notified when we launch? Leave a comment in the featured post below titled "AI-powered community", or reach out and connect! 

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Previously...

🐣 I co-founded a venture studio. We launched 3 notable ventures:
 
1️⃣ 3Genius International. Network of travel booking websites. $100M+ in bookings and $10M+ in gross profit.

2️⃣ Moola.com. Multiplayer game. Grew virally to 450k community members, $7.6M economy. PCWorld's “Best Places to Waste Time on the Web”.
 
3️⃣ Locationary. Local data and community platform. Rewarded users for crowdsourcing local business data (eg. like for Apple Maps). $4.5M in funding. Acquired by Apple.

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🧠 Current Interests: AI, community, machine learning, travel, fintech, loyalty rewards, web3 / tokens / blockchain, creator & influencer economy, social commerce, marketplaces, network effects.

Arlen Ritchie

Pana

Working on building the services that empower the unrepresented Latinos in the US to open a bank account without the hoops and loops of the traditional banking system. 

Using novel and recent technology allowing the platform to scale to millions of users with high availability.

Software Developer

Quantum, Corredores y Asesores de Seguros, SRL

Currently helping out the firm to transform itself into a digital-first brokerage. Carrying out different IT projects that ranged from software implementation to contracting personnel.

Project Manager - IT Solutions.

Schön

Startup founder, speaker, and CEO-CTO of EdTech schon.io. Developed an eSports company from 2014-2016. Fin-Tech on 2017 on a park payment system startup. 2017 - 2018 on Pardo Labs (EdTech VR). Currently on edtech schon.io (2018 - current). Worked in the construction industry as a Civil Engineer (very important highways, warehouse, berths) on 2014-2015, 2017, 2019-2020.

Self-taught programmer with experience in distributed systems, cloud computing, Web Apps, VR, and AR.

Entrepreneur, Chief Technology Officer

Codemera

Worked as a front-end software engineer to develop OmniHealth an all-in-one platform for doctors, patients, and agents to book and pass consultations in the same platform.

Software Engineer

SERCITEC - Servicios Científicos y Técnicos SRL

Worked on a berth development project on DP World - Caucedo in Boca Chica, Dominican Republic. Oversaw the different development stages and some QA processes in which the contractor executed the installation, manufacturing, and managing of the new structure Caucedo's Berth expansion.

Engineering Assistant

Constructora Prida

Aided a senior engineer on the development of a warehouse for Pinturas Tropical. Oversaw workers, and installation of dowels, floors, walls, extractors, septic tanks.

Assistant Civil Engineer

RIT/NTID Center on Employment

Worked as a software developer to maintain and continue to develop a web application for the NTID department at RIT, which was used as a captioning aid for deaf students to read what the professor was saying while another person typed in their screen.

ParkPay 

After a startup-weekend event in 2017, the startup ParkPay tried to bring an automatic way of processing the parking tickets for cars in parking storages. 

I worked as a startup founder ranging from building a web application to communicating with other parties to include the parking mechanism in Malls.

Founder - ParkPay

Pardo

We received a small $10K seed fund for developing an online VR science lab for homeschoolers. 

We researched the most common challenges of cost and availability that homeschoolers faced and recreated a dynamic VR experience that taught students how it worked.

Gathered customer feedback, built several prototypes, and participated in the RIT August Demo Day.

Open-sourced a responsive A-Frame component that switched elements based on the connected device.

Worked primarily as a Software Developer and Project Manager. 

Used the following technologies
A-Frame, NodeJS, TypeScript, ThreeJS, JavaScript, CSS, SASS, Sendgrid, Webpack, Gulp, Firebase, Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel.

Founder - Software Project Manager and Developer

Town Of Henrietta

MS4 inspections / SWPPP reports. Sites inspection detecting bad management practices and giving recommendations. 

Connections to buildings from water main. Site lighting design with free software.

Engineer Internship

With a background in civil engineering and a drive to turn ideas into reality, I co-founded multiple startups:

🎮 An eSports company (pgarena)
👓 A WebVR startup for homeschoolers (Pardo), 
🚗 An NFC-based park payment solution (ParkPay),
🔊 MyTechnician (a voice-activated Windows machine diagnosis app), 
👨‍🏫 An online platform for streamlining the new student scoring process in the Dominican Republic (Schon). 

I've also worked on several successful side projects, including:
🏫 A highschool website for sharing (Project C)
📖 An innovative online manga reader (InnerBleach)
🤖 A real estate ad-placing bot, 
⌚ Timed anime episodes (Hatsuyuki), 
🗃 Digital business Profile Cards (edge). 

Toastmasters International competitor, always looking to connect with others and continue learning. 

Let's connect 🤗!

taplio

The Battle

Arlen Ritchie

Jose Javi Asilis

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