About MobileArq

MobileArq (doing business as LocalArq Inc) is a NJ-based boutique software firm.

MobileArq’s mission is to enhance parents’ involvement and communication with their children’s school(s) and the local school community.  We provide mobile and online apps that facilitate easier parent-to-parent and school-to-parent communications.  The intended outcome for MobileArq apps is to enable parents to be better organized and more engaged with the school community, thus enhancing success for their children.

MobileArq Founder/CEO/CTO Niru Mallavarupu has over 20 years of deep technology expertise in distributed computing and web-based technologies. Prior to founding MobileArq, she was the Director of Engineering at Bluenog, a venture-backed company.

Earlier, Niru worked in the Oracle HeadQuarters in the heart of the Oracle Database Kernel Group, responsible for recovery algorithms.  She was a key member of the E-Commerce and Application Server Team in Sun Microsystems for several years. Prior to that, she was a member of the pioneer distributed and transaction processing server Team in Carnegie Mellon-based Transarc.  Niru got her Masters in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology and her Bachelors in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Science.

MobileArq Co-Founder and COO, Anand N. Mhatre, has extensive experience in the use of databases for genomics research and directing a large research team. Anand was a faculty member at New York University School of Medicine for eight years where his laboratory identified and published a disease gene for an inherited condition and developed a transgenic animal model for investigating disease mechanism and developing therapeutics.  Anand has published extensively including authoring textbook chapters on Human Genetics.

Technology Team РWe have a strong technology team with architects, programmers and designers who bring together decades of industry experience.

Advisory Board

Mario M. Casabona, an Entrepreneur and active Angel Investor is actively involved in MobileArq. In 2012 he founded¬†and is CEO of¬†TechLaunch LLC, NJ’s Technology Accelerator which provides seed funding, co-working space, LaunchPad (business boot-camp), mentors, and access to investors for aspiring entrepreneurs. In 2007 he founded Casabona Ventures, providing Executive Coaching, Business Development Advice, Strategic Planning, and early-stage Private Equity financing to technology-focused companies. He has invested in over 20 start-ups and enjoys building the start-up ecosystem in New Jersey.

Amelie Koran is an information security professional who works as the enterprise security architect for the United States Department of the Interior. She has worked for Xerox as a user interface designer, the American Chemical Society as a webmaster, Stan Lee Media, Namesafe, Inc., and Mandiant as an IT Manager, the World Bank and CERT/CC as a computer security specialist, and most recently. She developed the Star Wars Multimedia Archive in 1993 as an undergraduate and then started SoundtrackNet in 1996. She’s a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Marketing Strategy, Anum Hussain is the co-founder of Acciyo, a platform to understand the news easily. She was previously a Growth Marketer on the Sidekick Team at HubSpot. Prior to leading content efforts for the Sidekick Team, Anum worked on HubSpot’s Marketing Team producing some of the company’s most downloaded offers – such as stock photos, email templates, and various free tools. Outside of HubSpot, Anum continues geeking out over marketing by teaching marketing at the Isenberg School of Management and advising strategy here at MobileArq. She’s also the co-author on the third edition of Twitter for Dummies. You can find her online at anumhussain.com

Our Story

As a Mother of two young boys, Nirupama Mallavarupu spent a lot of time on the road dropping/picking up kids from various activities. These trips invariably require contact with other parents and she was often frustrated by not having access to a parent directory while away from my home. Even after having purchased multiple print copies, those print directories always went missing at home when she needed them the most.

To overcome this problem, she built a secure and private mobile school directory and a collaboration website for her children’s school and surrounding schools. With the mobile directory, parents can access the directory information on their mobile devices as well as desktop computers, when and where they want with the convenience of calling/emailing/texting directly from the App. New data can be added and corrections can be made in real-time, so it’s always up-to-date.