Delvecchio said the MBTA-ShuttleGirl relationship has helped Second Kiss Wireless, Inc. get other markets interested—and Boston never would have gotten on board if it had not been for ShuttleGirl’s Harvard success.
The Sexy Stuff
All work and no play makes ShuttleGirl a dull transportation service. So Delvecchio and Karamchandani have made sure ShuttleGirl gets her fun time.
The identity of the original ShuttleGirl silhouette, with her hips thrust to the side and her fingers running through her hair, was kept under wraps to generate excitement about the site.
When Delvecchio and Karamchandani decided they wanted ShuttleGirl to be a Harvard student (instead of an internationally renowned pop star) they solicited suggestions from the student body for the next ShuttleGirl.
About 200 nominations later, they selected the lucky winner. And in early March, the campus met the new ShuttleGirl—or rather, her legs.
The identity of the mystery Harvard student wearing a kilt of shuttle schedules was the subject of much debate around campus until her upper body and name (Emily V.W. Galvin ’04) were revealed during exam period.
Galvin will remain the icon for now, but ShuttleGirl will find other ways to keep the Harvard community guessing.
And the Matthew Perry tracking device, another feature of the site, will continue to monitor his progress as he slides between “I’m Okay” and “Help Me.”
Kiss, Kiss
With Karamchandani still at Harvard and Delvecchio set to start work at McKinsey in Houston this November, neither of them can devote themselves full time to ShuttleGirl.
Harvard Transportation Services has shown interest in possibly purchasing the site, a move that would allow ShuttleGirl to live on for years to come.
But Delvecchio and Karamchandani are not giving up on the ShuttleGirl Project so easily.
Second Kiss is expanding its staff—Bryan T. Kim ’02 is now on board, as is one of Delvecchio’s friends from high school—and they are seeing how far ShuttleGirl can go.
Based on her extraordinary progress over the last nine months, it is safe to say that ShuttleGirl is enjoying the ride.