A Union College senior's startup company will debut a technological innovation at the Schenectady Museum's May 13 auction.
After 54 years of running fundraisers by having bidders write down offers for donated items, the museum will trade in its pencils, paper and clipboards for wireless hand-held computers provided by eWired Auctions.
“This is new territory for us. Up until now we've done this the oldfashioned way,” said Gary Ferris, museum director of external relations.
The wireless silent auction will mark a milestone for 21-year-old Brian Selchick and the online company he started in 2004. Since then, eWired has morphed into an online bidding platform for nonprofit organizations such as the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York.
Selchick on Friday signed a two-year contract with the New York-based BenefitEvents. The deal made eWired the Capital Region's exclusive seller of Benefit-Events' wireless auction technology.
An online auction will precede the museum's silent auction, allowing people at home to bid on items such as a stay at the Glen Sanders Mansion, jewelry and artwork. The auction is expected to raise up to $10,000.
The Ronald McDonald House Charity Foundation has also signed up for eWired's silent auction service.
“Charities are just strapped for staff and they're strapped for time, and they really never consider doing any of these new technology initiatives unless someone brings it to their door,” said Selchick, a Menands native.
BenefitEvents has showcased the patent-pending ebidding technology in Washington, D.C., and New York. However, the Schenectady auction will be its major debut, said company President James Wintner.
“This is definitely a first for the neighborhood,” said Wintner, a 1965 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute graduate.
Since 1998, the New York firm has hosted online auctions for nonprofits such as the Make-AWish Foundation. It reworked its ebidding technology to work on personal digital assistants, or PDAs, such as Research In Motion's Blackberry and Dell's Axim.
Selchick's business evolved from him selling items on eBay.com. As his business evolved into a nonprofit fund-raising vehicle, cMarket in Boston provided him with the ebidding infrastructure needed to run the auctions. BenefitEvents will now supply that support network for eWired.
Selchick said the museum auction will operate on a small scale, involving only about five PDAs and seven personal computers and laptops. Bidders can enter their bids on those devices, and the bids will then be projected onto large screens at the museum on Nott Terrace Heights.
BenefitEvents and eWired will charge nonprofits for the initial setup for wireless connectivity, hardware and staffing costs and 5 percent of each event's auction proceeds. As the events get larger, WiFiFee in Menands will help eWired establish wireless connectivity at auction sites, Selchick said.
After graduating in June from Union with a bachelor's in history, Selchick will spend another year at the Schenectady college to pursue a master's of business administration. He later plans to study law. In June, eWired moved to an office on Central Avenue in Albany from Union's U-Start Incubator in Schenectady.