Worth of app-roval

Meet two local tech founders who have launched tech tools to make connecting and scheduling a little easier.

JewConnect: Supporting Jewish and Israeli businesses

When Liam Garama moved to Chicago from Israel nearly five years ago, she started hosting Shabbats.   

“Being far from home is not easy, and I felt that I could create spaces where people could come together, share meals, and celebrate traditions,” she said.  

Garama said the shared meals sparked her passion for bringing people together. After October 7, she said a sense of community became even more vital. 

“In that moment,” she said, “the Shabbat table became more than a tradition; it became a lifeline.” 

That same passion led Garama to create the app JewConnect.  

“I wanted to take the feeling of connection from the Shabbat table and expand it into a platform where Jewish and Israeli-owned businesses could gain visibility, opportunities, and support,” she said. 

Her app is a community-powered platform that helps support and locate these businesses across the Midwest.   

Businesses create a profile, and app users can search by category, location, or need. The app features a mix of restaurants, cafes, caterers, doctors, lawyers, and artists.  

While starting an app came with challenges, the creator said the team faced antisemitism.  

“Some people would openly say things like, ‘If I see a Jewish business, I immediately say ‘no thank you,'” she said. “It was emotional.”  

Those moments, while painful, only solidified the need for her app. 

“Every hateful comment made us more determined to create a space of pride, strength, and visibility for our community,” Garama said.  

So far, Garama said the response has been “overwhelming in the best way.”  

Over 180 businesses have joined the app, and thousands of people are already using the site to connect. 

“People love that this isn’t just a directory, it’s a real community that cares,” Garama said.  

Aviva: An app to manage busy parent calendars

Amy Briggs calls herself an “unlikely tech founder.” 

Born and raised in Chicago’s north-suburban Jewish community, Briggs is thrilled to continue to call the area home with her husband and two daughters. 

She worked as a pediatric speech pathologist at her own private practice. After over a decade supporting children and families, Briggs said she witnessed the “pressures of modern parenthood” that she also saw reflected in her own life. 

“It was this intimate view of parenting behind closed doors that lit a fire in me to do something bigger, with a broader reach than my direct clinical work, to lift the mental workload and offer real help for parents,” Briggs said.   

That’s when Briggs, with the help of AI, created Aviva, a tool to support parents. She first developed a prototype and, after receiving positive feedback from users, she was able to advance her app and even hire an app developer.  

“Aviva uses AI to reduce the invisible workload of parenting,” she said. “With user permission, it scans emails for information related to the family schedule-think school updates, sports schedules, after-school activities, birthday parties, and more.” 

The app then automatically turns the information into calendar events and sets reminders.  

Briggs reported one user said, “Aviva catches things I might have missed-for example, it helped when [our] camp made a last-minute change in pickup time-I saw the invite before I saw the email.” 

The AI used in the app works like a personal scheduling assistant. Briggs calls the app a “safety net.”  

“My greatest hope is that it frees up both the time and mental space for parents to feel better,” she said. “Because at the end of the day, kids thrive when their parents are also thriving.”  

Elyssa Kaufman is a Digital News Producer at CBS Chicago.