Our Why
The Founders
Christina Chen, CEO
Christina grew up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, supporting her family’s Chinese restaurant since age 9. She studied Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, and Business Management at MIT, and also interned at startups and big companies alike each summer. Christina understands firsthand the struggles of small business owners, as well as the resource abundance of large corporations and universities who want to support and care. Her hope for creating that bridge between the two worlds sparked the idea of BigOrders. In her free time, Christina enjoys hiking, painting, and listening to thought-provoking podcasts—all while exploring new places and cultures with her friends and family.
Omari Nyarko, CTO
Omari Nyarko grew up in Accra, Ghana, and attended Achimota Senior High School. Recently graduating from Calvin University with a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering. During his college career, Omari gained valuable experience interning twice at AWS, where he made significant contributions, including developing a throttling mechanism at Amazon Web Services to enhance service reliability. Omari has held leadership positions as President of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and Vice President of Calvin University’s student senate. His leadership extends into the classroom, where he served as a Teaching Assistant in the engineering department, demonstrating his dedication to mentoring others. In his free time, Omari enjoys playing basketball and competing with friends. His drive for continuous learning and his commitment to innovation make him a promising leader and an impactful member of his community and beyond.
The Story
Christina and Omari met while interning at Amazon. They connected over deep philosophical and professional conversations, and notably they were often the nominated planners of weekly team meals for teammates. The meal they got to share with their team was invaluable, but the time spent picking a restaurant, getting people's food orders, or figuring out logistics for pick-up was frankly, outdated.
And so begins their journey to grow their technical skills and understanding of the market to build a food ordering platform to simplify and reward group ordering with local restaurants.
Our Goal
Simplify and reward connection of teams with local restaurants.
We want to be the natural choice of food ordering tools when someone wants to start building connection amongst a group of friends, coworkers, or colleagues.
Because of ease, because we support local, and because we're rooting for you.
"Stand with us, stand for them"
That's the BigOrders community promise