Anderson, who describes his work history as schizophrenic, went from sitting on the bench as a criminal court judge to working as a juvenile parole officer, to working in pharmaceuticals, writing a number of books, working on Wall Street and, lastly, building digital platforms for public education—one of which provides an SMS service to help teachers communicate en masse with parents via text messaging. Unfortunately, he couldn’t even pay school districts to implement the app due to the amount of red tape that’s involved.
“At one time I had 26 websites and didn’t make a dime on any of them,†says the Queens, New York-raised technophile. “But if I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be where I am now.â€
Once his frustration with education waned, Anderson decided to try something fun and got the idea for SelfieHeat.
“My 26-year-old daughter is critical of everything I do. She once said ‘Daddy, how do you have a text messaging platform and you don’t even know how to text?’†says Anderson, who outsourced the technical work for SelfieHeat to NineHertzIndia.com.  “I asked her to tell me what she thought of SelfieHeat. She said, ‘It’s like Instagram but more advanced.’ That was an endorsement I didn’t expect.â€
Anderson is hoping the financial success of SelfieHeat will help him make inroads in public education and eventually improve digital education solutions. The first major prize, a 2016 Dodge Challenger, will be up for grabs to the selfie with the most votes between now and December. SelfieHeat will be available on Google Play later this summer.