BEIRUT: If you think about it, many of the friends, partners and acquaintances you have had throughout your life were introduced to you by mutual contacts. But you may have also missed many opportunities to meet other people with whom you may have clicked. This idea of missed connections was the drive behind OneAway, a new smartphone application developed by a group of Lebanese friends that allows you to connect with like-minded people.

“Do I really need to wait to be introduced to someone I would like to meet?” says Nadim Gharios, one of the co-founders of OneAway. “We wanted to find a way to connect with as many people as possible without needing others for that first introduction. This way, possible acquaintances in the same location become more relevant.”

The free app can be used wherever you are in the world as it uses GPS and Facebook to show who from your friends and friends of friends are in the area. The Heat Map shows your location and the statistics of how many OneAway users are out and about. However, groups, which have to be two or more people, are only shown in numbers in order to protect privacy.

“Obviously, you wouldn’t want people to know where you are all the time,” says Gharios.

The Nearby Map scans your location in a two-block radius, which roughly equates to 500 meters, and allows you to see who exactly is around you, and then you can instant message them. “Your identity is shown on the Nearby Map as you could have bumped into them anyway,” Gharios, 27, explains.

You also have the option to go offline so that you won’t appear on either map, but it also means that you won’t be able to see who is online. “You can also block people so that they can never see you online, which comes in handy if you are trying to avoid an ex, for example,” Gharios explains.

Gharios, along with co-founder Anis Harb, 26, postponed his MBA studies at The Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, to work on OneAway, while Ibrahim Contron, also 26, postponed his Masters of Computer Science at Standford University to co-found the app.

The team is backed by DreamIt Ventures, an accelerator company that helps startup businesses to get their feet on the ground. OneAway was one of 15 startups chosen out of 500 to benefit from DreamIt’s mentorship, legal advice and contacts. They were also given $20,000 to set up the app.

“People use a limited number of apps every day, so we wanted to give people a reason to use OneAway on a daily basis as the service is more valuable if a lot of people are on it,” says Gharios. “The tools that are currently available in the market are only optimized to connect with the people that you already know well.”

The team is currently working on a new feature called Activities, whereby you can select a group of people after you have scanned your location and propose an activity (such as going to the cinema or getting a bite to eat) to which they can reply with a simple yes or no.

“It’s spontaneous, you get instant results,” Gharios says. And you never know, your new best friend could only be one step away.

OneAway is free to download from iTunes and will be available on Android by the end of January.