Dynamic School

Posts Tagged ‘bangalore university’

The concept behind SearchMyCampus is pretty simple. A student needs a hostel near his campus, he logs on to the website, browses the existing notices for accommodation and in case he still can’t find what he’s looking for, he posts a notice advertising his need. Accommodation providers advertise their rooms, and reply to existing notices from students needing a place to stay. Similarly, a student thinks she’s good at economics and could use some extra pocket money; she posts a notice offering tutoring services to other students in her campus. Other students who need help, view her notice and contact her. Thus, a channel of communication is created and mutual needs are fulfilled.

When we tell people that SearchMyCampus is an online campus noticeboard where students can publicize their needs to buy/sell merchandise or services, we get varied responses. The question we’re asked most often is whether we’re a social networking site, with ‘oh it’s like eBay or the Yellow Pages’ being a close second. But I appeal to your good sense. If any of these other sites are even half as effective as we are, I’ll eat my hat! Can you find students looking to initiate a carpool on the Yellow Pages? How often do you come across students who’ve found hostels or even jobs on Orkut or Facebook?

The purpose of SearchMyCampus is to provide merchandise/services that are relevant to students in campuses across India. And unlike any online marketplace, we leave it to the students to help each other meet their needs. We’re a utility site so you won’t find pokes, superpokes or even desipokes within miles of our site. But we’re hoping that’s not what you’re looking for when you log on to SearchMyCampus. We’re hoping you’re interested in starting up an NGO and you’re looking for volunteers to help you do that. We’re hoping you’re an outstation student, planning to move to a different city for university, and looking for a place to stay when you get there. We’re even hoping you’re an aspiring director, and are looking for students to star in your next movie.

So getting to the point, what sets us apart from most other sites out there is that we’re not just about the fun, we’re about solving a long unmet need. Students need to be able to communicate with each other effectively to be able to create an interdependent community where they can help each other. We’re not inviting a bunch of marketing managers from companies to plug their products here; we’re helping students express their needs and help each other meet them.

What really sets us apart from these other sites is that we want to students to drive it forward. You’re out of school, into college; you gotta start taking care of yourself right? Your mom isn’t going to keep driving you to dance classes and cricket practice forever. You’re gonna have to start finding ways of getting there yourself. Well, we’re offering to help you find the way. Log on to SearchMyCampus, post an ad for a car pool, and get people together to commute to college everyday. Students need to be able to understand their ability to help each other out, and recognize the value of SearchMyCampus to help them do it.

We at SearchMyCampus very strongly believe that the Indian youth has all this potential just bursting to come out, only if it’s given a chance. Heck, we may have retired from studenthood but we’re youth too, and we definitely know our potential. We can’t be a rare species now can we? So, if students in India were only given a chance to communicate with each other and help each other take care of themselves, we’d sure as hell have a revolution on our hands.

Examples of entrepreneurial spirit and creative ability are already visible on the site. Not only the users of the site, but even the students helping us bring it to the colleges are displaying remarkable enthusiasm and ability for innovation. From here it’s only a small stretch of the imagination to believe that a venture like this could truly hold the key to empowering the youth of India, and changing the way they think about themselves and each other.

Incoming search terms:

• searchmycampus

Not all the writing is on the wall, some of it is also on the notice board. Summer jobs wanted, tuitions available, second-hand laptop for sale, brand new mobile phone lost and found — the college noticeboard is quite the silent chronicler of the life of the student community. But at a time when hundreds of youngsters cross over to the virtual world every day, the notice board is at best a blink-and-you-miss item. And cashing in on this virtual defection is online notice board searchmycampus.

Brainchild of Peyush Bansal, 23, the site was launched last December and has found earnest following among students who are using it to exchange information on everything from accommodation, to car pools, to buying and selling books, bikes, notes, furniture, mobiles..

The genesis of searchmycampus lies in Bansal’s experiences at a Canadian university where, he says, he virtually lived on streets, with no clue about accommodation. “I went to McGill University in Montreal at 18, against my parents’ wishes. I faced a lot hassles in settling down in the campus. So, when I retuned to India I decided to create this online campus board that would provide students a platform. I believe that only students can solve the problems of other students.”

By way of homework, after returning to India in October 2007, Bansal spent a lot of time traveling, meeting college students all over the country to understand their problems. Co-founder of the site and student of Indraprastha University, Delhi, Parit Gupta, 21, also helped him. Chetna, a student of Sri Ram College of Commerce, points out that besides not having time enough to look up the college notice board there is also the problem of “torn notices.” She has recently put an ad on searchmycampus with a request that someone lend her a copy of Eric Seghal’s Love Story.

Kanika Saraff, a first year Economics student of Hindu college, also posted an ad seeking a summer job and was pleasantly surprised when she got a good response. She says, “Most outstation students like me do not know whom to approach for various things such as a good accommodation or summer jobs. This campus board will fill this gap.”

Besides facilitating intra-college communication, the website also promises to create better inter-college communication channels. Take the case of aspiring musician Romi of Delhi University, who wants to form a band. ‘I am a lead singer looking forward to establish a band, but not able to find good guitarists and drummers. Anyone interested may contact me’, says Romi’s post.

Ankit Khirwal is one of many DU students who are actively promoting the online campus notice board. He says, “I spend a lot of time tracking down all important notices on campus boards in various colleges and post them here. I believe there is so much that students can do for each other through this website.”

A part from Delhi, the site is getting popular in  campuses in other cities such as Bangalore, where students are also offering  lots of gadgets such as, iPods, Laptops, Handsfree, DVDs with pictures of the stuff they are seeking to sell, their  price and a note of on their condition. “The student-oriented online campus is quite innovative. Students from all over the country can post their queries on the site; it has the potential to replace the college notice board in the future,” says Tosha Koshi , who is doing her masters from Christ College, Bangalore.

Bansal says he wishes to bring together the community of 11 million college going students in the country under the umbrella of SearchMyCampus. He says, “This may not be as cool as various social networking sites, but it will surely be highly useful. Now I want to create a category where students can share their emotional problems too, campus life is all about sharing and caring for each other.”

Globalization may have made the world a smaller place, but for most of us it’s still not small enough. We are constantly innovating newer means of bringing people closer together. The phenomenal success of social networking sites has proved the basic need of people to connect to each other, and maintain these connections over periods of time.  However, websites like Facebook, Orkut, MySpace etc. only bring people together to meet emotional needs i.e. the need for social interaction. There is still a large gap where meeting material needs is concerned. There are only a limited number of websites in India that bring people together to serve their need for merchandise or services.
What is worse is that students are a sadly neglected breed, and even websites like eBay, Cleartrip etc. that do exist to meet material needs are often restricted to the privileged lot that own a credit card, and let’s face it, there aren’t too many people handing those out to students (and maybe with good reason ). But that does leave us poor folks in a pickle. We need cheap access to housing, books, laptops, mobile phones, jobs etc. just as much as the next working person, in fact, even more.  Yet while there are infinite sources that provide you with information about the best 5 star hotels, there are practically no websites that tell you about good hostels or paying guest accommodation in any city or campus.

So we decided that we’d had enough, and that we’d have to do something about it. We didn’t need other people to help us meet our basic needs at university. We’d do it ourselves. And thus SearchMyCampus was born. searchmycampus is an online campus noticeboard where students as well as student service providers can advertise their needs – merchandise/services they want to buy or sell. The idea behind this is that all students need certain basic merchandise and services during their time at university, and they can help each other get access to these. What one student has and doesn’t need another student may want. If they can be put in touch with each other, they can fulfill each others’ requirements i.e. the need of one to get rid of something and the need of to obtain it.

I may have purchased a television when I was a student at university, but when I graduate I need to sell this television. Another student who has just started university may need a television, but may not want to purchase an expensive new one. If I can get in touch with him to sell my television at a reasonable price, we both benefit.  Students also tend to have common needs. I need to get to college everyday but commuting everyday is expensive. If I can find 5 other students from areas near my house, we can share the costs among ourselves and so mutually benefit. I may have found an excellent apartment near university that I cannot afford to live in by myself. If I can get in touch with students from my college who also require cheap accommodation in a convenient location, I can share the rent with them, and save my money for more important things like food.

Sure this sounds pretty simple when we say it, and I’m sure you’re all smacking yourselves on the head for not thinking of it earlier, but there is a problem here. There are at present no efficient and effective means of communicating your need to people who can fulfill them. If I’m one among a few thousand students in my college, and my college is one among 100 in my university, then my chances of locating someone who meets my requirements are low. At least if I stick conventional methods such as campus noticeboard advertisements, college newspaper classifieds etc. And ultimately if I do manage to find someone, the expenses involved would probably force me to live on air and water for the next 6 months.

This is where SearchMyCampus  comes in <drum roll>.  We provide students with an online platform to express these needs so that others have convenient access to them. Not only does this mean increased efficiency and convenience, but it also means 0 cost because it is totally free to use for students.

Why should I, a student, pay a month’s rent to a property agent just to find accommodation during term time when I can contact the owner directly and arrange it? I’m broke enough as it is, and I can think of much better uses this money can be put to *evil grin*. SearchMyCampus allows accommodation providers (PGs, Hostels, etc.) as well as students to advertise their needs to each other, thus enabling direct contact without the need for intermediaries. Similarly, students don’t need the services of consultants to find jobs (especially summer and part-time jobs). They can do it themselves by contacting interested companies directly. Thus, the site not only identifies needs, but puts them in public notice to be fulfilled.

This interaction to meet mutual needs internally without the need for intermediaries gives birth to an interlinked group of people having the ability to fulfill each other’s mutual material needs. Creating an independent student community of this type is bound to have far reaching consequences, extending beyond convenience and cost saving for students. Not only should it enable the Indian youth to stand on its own feet, it could also encourage entrepreneurial ventures based on the newly created channels of communication.

Evidence of the website’s success is visible already even in the brief time it has been available to the public, and as its utility is proved, the community of students thus created will only get stronger. As the success of social networking sites has proved, students are ready to create and participate in virtual communities that ultimately strengthen physical ones. SearchMyCampus will play a vital role in taking this trend to a whole new level.