Editor’s note: ExitEvent, a news partner of WRAL TechWire, profiles the six recipients of the latest NC IDEA Fund grants. This profile features 80Pct Solutions. Profiles were written by ExitEvent Editor Laura Baverman.
DURHAM, N.C. - Fred Stutzman is a technologist who took a break from industry in 2006 to dive into the study of social media. And once there, he saw its biggest drawback—constant connectivity affected our ability to work.
During graduate school at the University of North Carolina, Stutzman began to struggle with the exact problem he was studying—Facebook was distracting him so he began to study at a coffee shop without wi-fi access. But when wi-fi became available there, he knew a different solution would be necessary.
And that’s when he started creating his own solution. He built two apps starting in 2008: Freedom, which locks you from the Internet completely (while still providing access to services like Dropbox and Spotify), and Anti-Social, which lets you pick and choose which sites and applications to block. Over time, he released versions for multiple devices.
The complete profile can be read at ExitEvent.
