It was during the conflict in Ukraine last February that Sukhsagar Singh realized UCIC’s power in connecting strangers from around the world.

Singh, the Co-Founder and CEO of SnapWise Inc., created UCIC as a social media tool that would allow people in one part of the world to ask information of people in another place. The app has been featured in the national media, and even won the best new app at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

But Singh realized the power of his company’s creation when he asked users in Ukraine if anyone could tell personal stories or provide photos from the Russian assault on the country.  One user – a complete stranger – responded. He was a student in Donetsk who had been caught and injured in the fighting. His arm was broken and he was unable to seek treatment because medical facilities were closed due to the fighting. He sent along a photo of a nearby wall with a huge hole blown in it.

“This wasn’t Anderson Cooper interviewing him on TV,” said Singh, sitting recently in the Waterloo Accelerator Centre. “This was just me, a private citizen, reaching out to a student in a war zone.”

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Singh and his Co-Founder Harleen Kaur designed UCIC – pronounced “you-see-I-see” – mainly with simpler tasks in mind. About a year ago they concluded that there were about 2.5 billion smartphones in the world, each with a camera, GPS, and text capabilities. They reasoned people should be able to look at a map on their phone, see who is in a certain location and ask them a question – is the parking lot full? Is there a long line at Tim Horton’s? Is the ski hill crowded?

“Unlike other social media applications, UCIC is not centred around what other people decide to post,” said Singh. “UCIC puts the user in the driver’s seat … where you are asking what’s happening.”

Trained as a nano-technology engineer at University of Waterloo, Singh had been working for a large corporation when he and Kaur decided to set up their company in the home of his alma mater. The startup has been receiving mentorship from the Accelerator Centre as well as the university’s Velocity accelerator.

UCIC’s big break came last year when the co-founders attended the Consumer Electronics Show, which attracts hundreds of thousands of people. Singh was lucky enough to pitch UCIC, and won the Best New App award. That led to a flood of media attention, which drew users into the site.

UCIC has now been downloaded by about 50,000 people, and the number of users has risen about 40 percent in the three months the company has been in the Accelerator Centre. The team hopes to monetize the app through advertising and eventually through a premium service for journalists.

Singh said the company is now focused on building up a geographic concentration of users in one place, and the Waterloo Region is the first market. The team is aiming for 100,000 users in the region.