The nomination "Responsible for those ...": The online platform works with shelters for homeless animals in the northern capital and the Leningrad region.
The essence of the unusual streaming service is to help those who are left without a host. The creators of the platform, called PetStream, really hope that their website will provide an opportunity not only to feed the cats from the shelter, but also to help the tailed ones find a new home, the Social News Agency writes.
The streaming system was developed by engineers Yuri Denisov and Maxim Kleshchev last year. Yuri and Maxim work together in a company that deals with security systems. The appearance of such an unusual online platform was determined by chance.
In the cold winter of St. Petersburg, volunteers picked up a small dog on the street. The story of the Palma, as the dog was called, was published on social networks and Yuri Denisov responded to the post.
"As soon as I crossed the threshold of the apartment and saw her, I immediately realized that she was the one. When I left the volunteer, I was no longer alone. On the way home, Palma was very worried, whining and crying, sitting in the carrier. I couldn't stand it and opened the clasp - at the same moment she climbed into my arms and fell fast asleep in a few seconds," recalls our hero, Yuri Denisov.
The dog quickly settled into his new home and fell in love with his savior. And Yuri realized that other stray animals are waiting for love and care. Maxim Kleshchev, a friend and colleague, came to the rescue.
"The volunteers had Palma for only a week. But many pets do not wait for their human, and the reasons for this can be very diverse - from diseases to simple hunger. Shelters, as a rule, rely on donations and food assistance from caring people, but in the current rhythm of life, not everyone will find time to go to the store, buy food and bring it to the institution. Some are afraid to transfer money to unknown companies. Therefore, we have used modern technologies to solve the problems of abandoned animals in order to give them more time to meet their owner," says Yuri Denisov.
At PetStream, Yuri is responsible for organizational matters - he searches for shelters and presents the service to them. Maxim focuses on technical issues.
The service currently cooperates with four shelters in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region. Each one has feeders with remote control. Anyone can watch the animals and even feed them. On the website, you need to select a pet from the catalog, activate the feeder and monitor the animal's meal.
"We bought feeders, in fact, they were Chinese blanks, that is, mechanisms. But we made a new firmware for microelectronics. The program was written for both feeders and cameras. Then all this was brought to the website, which is at the same time the brain of our entire service. We did everything for our own money, if we calculate the costs approximately, we invested a million and a half. Without taking into account our labor costs, that was our impulse," says Maxim Kleshchev.
The cost of one feeding is 100 rubles. The funds are needed to maintain the smooth operation of the online service. You can fill the feeder for free for a repost on social networks. After all, the more people see the pets of shelters, the more likely the cats are to find owners, the developers believe.
In fact, Yuri and Maxim created a kind of social network for cats. After all, the site has all the information about animals, any user can meet the whiskered ones in absentia, choose a pet, feed it, and, perhaps, then take it to himself. According to the creators of the platform, shelters where dogs and even horses are kept have already shown interest in such feeders.
Photo - Social News Agency and from Maxim Kleshchev's personal archive.