Techies Launch BelongingsFinder.com for Japan Victims

March 18, 2011— -- A team of computer geeks in the U.K. is taking the term "tech support" to a whole new level with a website that helps earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan recover lost belongings.

Built in just two days by eight humanitarian-minded programmers and entrepreneurs, BelongingsFinder.com is like an online lost and found.

People who stumble upon others' personal belongings can upload pictures and descriptions of what they've found to the site, and people who are seeking their belongings can submit descriptions of lost items. When the site spots a match, it connects the two parties.

The site, which launched Sunday, grew out of a Startup Weekend event in Cambridge, England -- an all-consuming 54-hour affair in which teams build Web and mobile applications.

Stefano Orowitsch, 26, the team leader behind BelongingsFinder runs a car-sharing start-up in the Netherlands. Orowitsch said he had intended to spend the weekend on his own compan, but when news broke about the tragedy in Japan, he said he wanted to do something to "show solidarity."

"We heard the devastating news about the earthquake in Japan and I couldn't see myself working on my own company," said Orowitsch, who is a German technology policy student at the University of Cambridge. "I really wanted to do something that's going to help these people, not just for the weekend but into the future."

When the team first met, he said, they were big on talent but low on ideas. So they started researching and came across some information that sparked a collective light-bulb moment.

They discovered that Japan has a 1,300-year-old law that requires people to hand in lost property to police or established lost-and-found centers within five days. And, in 2002, according to a New York Times article they unearthed, $23 million in cash was returned to a Tokyo lost and found center.

"This is a society that is so honest, you can't top it, basically," he said. "It was such a striking thing. We were like, 'that's amazing.'"