As a freshman undergrad CS student (circa fall 2018), I walk into my first CS lecture and see like 1200 other students surrounding me in the room.
Everybody seems to be minding their own business, focused on themselves.
I think, “How am I supposed to find a relevant and optimal study buddy given that there is an overwhelming number of shy strangers around me?"
As the COVID pandemic rolled around the following year, I wanted to better understand the problem of anti-social academia at UW.
I paired up with a friend. Along with my friend (Jun Song), I interviewed 50+ University of Washington students about their academic/social lives and tried to learn about their pain points.
Ultimately, we found that roughly 68% of UW students wanted to find some relevant academic friends or study buddies, but found it difficult to do so (thanks to all sorts of factors).
And so I embark on an adventure to combat anti-social academia.
I recruit some talented, quirky, awesome Software Devs and UX Designers and we get to work building KiwiLink.
In just three months time, we were able to ideate, design, implement, and LAUNCH KiwiLink on iOS and Android, and we used algorithms and clean UIs to help UW students find relevant virtual study buddies during the plight of the COVID pandemic.
