Digital lost and found brings people together with their missing belongings.
Belon.gs has announced its new service based on QR codes that allows lost belongings that are labeled with personal barcodes to be scanned with smartphones so that they can be returned to their owners.
The system is very simple and allows people who have found items to do good deeds.
Whether the possessions are valuable because of their high price or for sentimental reasons, by using a label that features a scannable QR code, it increases the odds that if the person who finds it is honest, and if he or she has a smartphone to scan the code, then the item can be returned.
All too often, possessions are lost and their owners are stuck with the frustration of being left without any way to find them. Moreover, good Samaritans who find lost items and who would like to return them to their owners frequently have no way to contact those individuals.
The Belon.gs system gives the owner QR codes to provide honest people with a way to give their items back.
This digital lost and found program is very simple, and yet it can be highly useful for anyone who could accidentally drop a wallet or leave a cell phone behind in a public place. It was created by CEO Tomi Alapaattikoski and six other co-founders, all of whom are natives of Finland.
Alapaattikoski and two other Belon.gs co-founders are currently on a tour of the United States. They, and their blue plush mascot, have been spreading the word among Americans by handing out free sheets of stickers with QR codes that will allow individuals to label their belongings and help in the process of regaining them should they ever go missing.
Though the company itself is only just over three months old and their marketing until this point has been virtually non-existent, it has already built a user base of more than 7,000 people, the majority of whom are in the United States. The stickers feature both QR codes and a unique URL that allows the item owner to provide contact information so that someone who finds the item can access it to return the lost possession.
