First online memory bank launches to DePauw University

Remember.com, an online repository for memories, has launched its beta platform to DePauw University, which is celebrating the 175th anniversary of its founding this year.

The start-up company, based in Indianapolis, has built a platform to share and preserve the memories of any person, place or topic in the world. DePauw is the first topic on Remember.com, the first online memory bank.

Remember.com, currently available only to members of the DePauw community, intends to launch nationally over the coming weeks, taking on memories as varied as Super Bowls past to the Civil Rights movement.

The founders, Jason Becker and R. Brandon Sokol, say they started with DePauw because of their own memories of the school, their alma mater.

"Our vision is to help tell history from the people who lived it in a way that's never been done on the Internet before," said Becker, whose father, David Becker, founded First Internet Bank, the first online-only bank.

DePauw officials expect Remember.com to help them gather never-before-published memories from the all facets of the university community.

"Remember.com provides an innovative and immersive platform for the university's alumni, students, faculty members and friends to share memories of their experiences here," said Steve Setchell, director of corporate and foundation relations at DePauw and chairman of the unviersity's 175th anniversary committee.

Ken Owen, the university's executive director of media relations, sees Remember.com as a tool to engage alumni.

"Remember.com provides a way for people to display, discuss and talk about key moments in their lives and photos and videos they have or can access -- in the end, it reconnects people by reminding them of things that are important to them," Owen said.

"The fact that Remember.com was created by two DePauw alumni is icing on an already terrific cake," Owen added.

The founders, and their team of software engineers, plan to ultimately make Remember.com synonymous with the idea of remembering.

"We hope to be for memories what Wikipedia is for knowledge or Facebook is for friends," Sokol said. "When it's complete, it will be something to behold."

Becker, originally from Greenwood, is a former technology consultant in Chicago who recently completed graduate studies at Northwestern University.

Sokol, originally from Anderson, is a former investment banker and private equity investor in New York and Los Angeles. He recently completed the MBA program at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. At DePauw, Sokol served as editor-in-chief of The DePauw, the school's student newspaper.