As the geese fly south for the winter, Bird scooters will find its way back to ACU’s campus at the beginning of the spring semester.
Wildcat Ventures has acquired 25 scooters for the ACU campus to be used for students, faculty and staff.
“When they were here, students loved them,” said Riley Simpson, junior management major from Dripping Springs and president of Wildcat Ventures.
Bird previously arrived in Abilene in 2018 and partnered with SGA to have the scooters on campus. However, Abilene ordinances ultimately created conflict for Bird, as they opted out from the city. This time, they’ll be restricted specifically to campus.
“They will be restricted to campus,” Simpson said. “Wildcat Ventures will have control over the proximity of where they will be able to run. They actually have something built into the software that if they go outside of that radius, they’ll just shut off.”
While Simpson is hopeful and expect them to be readily available for use at the beginning of the spring semester, there are a few more tasks to complete.
“We’re waiting on a final approval from ACU,” Simpson said. “Once they approve it, we’ll finalize our contracts with Bird. In the meantime, we’re looking for a CEO to hire that we’ll have pioneering the charge.”
Wildcat Ventures plans to hire a young student to oversee the Bird Scooters and hopefully take over in the coming years.
“We’re looking to start interviewing next week,” Simpson said. “We’re looking for young students, sophomores and freshmen specifically, and entrepreneur-minded.”
While Birds didn’t last on campus very long in 2018, Simpson said they’ll make sure Wildcat Ventures does everything in their power to keep them here for years to come.
“We’re making sure that we develop relationships with the people who are in charge of that and also making sure that we are doing it in a way that serves ACU,” Simpson said. “We’ll make sure that we oversee the entire process of charging them and fixing them, if need be.”
