Originally published August 17, 2016
By Leonard Martinez
UTEP Communications
People travel the world for different reasons. For Doris Llamas, it’s a way to open her mind to learn about other cultures and herself.
She took six months to travel around Israel with just a backpack at a time when she was struggling to figure out what she wanted to do in her life.
“I went far [away] so I could just listen to myself,” Llamas said of the traveling that eventually brought her back to El Paso to enroll at UTEP.
While at UTEP she participated in a study abroad program in Paris, France, where she had an idea that became the recently launched Awayys app.
“I discovered a big gap between the social networking and travel industry and I decided to fill it,” she said. “It is incredible for travelers, especially students, but it is also extremely useful for corporate travelers of all ages.”
Awayys allows people to find anyone, anywhere in the world from wherever they are. It is based on multiple filters and discovery-mode switches. Users may search a city, a state or a whole country; search for people from a specific school, a specific company, or who are a specific age, gender, nationality, and more. Users can expand their search beyond their social circle (the friends of their friends) to the social circles of their friends.
“At Awayys, we want people to explore, but most importantly, we want people to connect and unite,” said Llamas, who graduated from UTEP with a bachelor’s degree in computer information systems in May 2016. “We want people to understand that what makes this world so great and so unique is the people who live in it. My passion is connecting to people and appreciating every encounter that is in front of you, every opportunity to meet someone.”
Students studying abroad can use the app to find other Americans who have visited a particular city or country.
“You can filter the app by places visited and it will fetch everything from a person’s Facebook page, all the tagged pictures of where the person has been,” Llamas said. “Let’s say I’m going to Italy and I want to know who’s been there out of my friends or even everyone. I will then be able to see who’s been there so I can connect with them.”
Corporate travelers can use Awayys to find other business people to connect with.
“Right now, you can travel to Dallas tomorrow from UTEP and you could eat dinner alone,” Llamas said. “You’re wasting your time. You have the opportunity to meet a fellow UTEP alum who’s maybe less than a mile away from you. You can find that information through the app.”
Llamas began working on the project alone, but now has a team of 11, including Thiago Correa, an internationally recognized travel influencer from Brazil, and students from Harvard, Rice, Baylor, The University of Texas at Austin, Southern Methodist University and the University of Dallas. Recently, the project was funded by private venture capitalists in Silicon Valley.
Leo Gemoets, Ph.D, a UTEP associate professor of computer information systems, was a mentor of Llamas’ while she was creating the app.
“We in the business college teach information technology from an enterprise view,” Gemoets said. “We have really been focusing on entrepreneurship so they learn the business side … the money-making side.”
Gemoets added that Llamas – a young Hispanic woman in technology who doesn’t fit the traditional geek stereotype – would be a role model for younger students.
“Younger students will say, ‘If she did it, I can do it,” Gemoets said.
The Awayys app is available through iTunes and Google Play. For more information, visit www.awayys.com.