Proposal Development: Concept Paragraph

There are many social media websites that help people find friends and make connections through common interests, but there are none that target college students at a university. Our team will create an easy-to-use website with a supporting database that will allow students to create groups and events based on mutual interests and also provide the option of arranging carpool or transportation services to these events or activities. College students, particularly those who are from out-of-state or another city, may not know many other students at their university and will benefit from having a website where they can participate in social activities that coincide with their interests. We will use Kickstarter to fund the initial start-up costs and then pitch the website to the university, where, as the website would be a service for students, it could be run and maintained through university funding.

Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace are used to connect people online who know each other in real life and/or share common interests and backgrounds. However, these sites focus on connecting people from all over the world and it is normally a prerequisite that you at least know the name of the person you are trying to connect to. Often, students go to a college in a different city or out-of-state and, particularly in their freshman year, know very few people. Trying to find other students who share common interests can be difficult. Our website would give students the opportunity to connect with new people, discover new interests, and make new friends, all at their own university. In addition, trying to find transportation to events and activities is also difficult if you lack a vehicle or access to a reliable transportation system. Our website will allow students to organize carpooling and transportation to events and activities.

The website will be built using  HTML5 and Javascript or PHP. The database backing it will be built using PHP, MySQL, and possibly jQuery. It will be hosted on a free web-hosting platform to reduce the initial start-up costs.

Since the website can be created and hosted using free tools, the initial costs can be reduced. However, longer-term funding will be through Kickstarter and, once a working website is completed, the product can be shown to universities who can invest in the support and maintenance of the website.

Won’t you join us to create a website where students can connect with other students based similar interests and activities, helping them feel more at home at their university?