A smart phone app to help Canadians make a difference!
Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - March 4, 2025) - Retired Calgary mother of two, Cathy Checora, and son, Ryan Checora, have been hard at work over the last month making improvements to their new mobile phone application 'O SCANada'. It's an app that allows users to scan a barcode or search a brand name to determine its Canadian authenticity.
A family of independent developers
O SCANada is a hand-crafted app, made not by a corporation, but by a Canadian family of indie app developers. Cathy and Ryan share an interest in artificial intelligence, both individually developing AI-powered apps in recent years.
Ryan is an alumnus of the SAIT Software Programming program, while mom Cathy has come to iOS development through personal interest and self-study. Both have made other apps, including Ryan’s recently published GridSpace, a word game to challenge a certain other popular American word game!
O SCANada illustrates a positive application of AI
More recently, as the topic of Canada-US trade relations has come to the forefront of the minds of the Canadian public, the duo saw an opportunity to use this shared interest to apply their expertise in a positive way. The app leverages AI to search the web and obtain answers relevant to Canadian product authenticity. Users are presented with sourced information containing citations to increase confidence in both accuracy and transparency of the answers that are generated.
A useful tool for Canadians
"We're very happy with the app's current performance," said Cathy. "With the recent improvements we've made based on user feedback, we believe we're now providing information that really helps to make informed purchasing decisions in many cases.”
“And we're not done yet,” adds Ryan. “We still have improvements in mind, like adding a community-rating feature where users can give a 'thumbs-up' to product information they find helpful. By combining our current technology with crowd-sourced community input, we believe we can create a powerful tool for Canadian consumers, one that hasn’t been done quite this way before."
Cathy and Ryan remain committed to refining and expanding the app, proving that inspired individuals can truly make a meaningful impact.
Is it Canadian?
"We found that defining whether a product is truly Canadian isn't always straightforward," says Ryan, co-creator of O SCANada. "That's why we decided to focus on four key aspects: ownership, manufacturing locations, Canadian employees, and the source of materials.
These factors help us assess a product's connection to Canada with greater clarity and nuance. A product can be Canadian in some respects, while less-so in others. We want to provide consumers with the facts and ultimately let them decide what to purchase."
Released to the iOS app store on February 3, 2025, to general public success, the app reached #1 in free utilities on the app store and as of now has over 64 thousand downloads with 300+ 5-star reviews. The Android version of the app has just been released to the Google Play store on March 4, 2025, with the help of nearly 100 community-sourced Canadian testers who volunteered for early access.
Overwhelming support of the community has encouraged Cathy and Ryan to make further improvements to the app, with a focus on providing a better answer to the question "Is it Canadian?".
Download O SCANada:
iOS: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/o-scanada/id6741120187
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.maple.made_in_canada&hl=en
Contact us for more of the story:
Cathy Checora at 403 830 1958
Ryan Checora at 403 971 7542
Email: oscanada.app@gmail.com
To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/243284
