Project Abstract

Motivation and Background: University students often struggle to integrate into campus life due to exclusive academic activities, lack of motivation, and difficulty finding like-minded peers. Existing social platforms fail to address their unique needs, prioritizing superficial engagement over meaningful interactions. Shelter addresses these gaps by creating a tailored space for academic and social growth. Proposition: Shelter is a student-exclusive social platform designed to promote academic collaboration and meaningful connections. Its unique positioning lies in combining gamified rewards, AI-driven event recommendations, and verified student communities to bridge the information gap and reduce social isolation. The main aim is to enhance student engagement through structured event management and real-life interactions. Methods: The platform employs a React Native frontend, Node.js/.NET backend, and MongoDB database, hosted on Azure. Key features include university email verification, interest-based event recommendations, a check-in reward system, and in-app chat functionality. User testing involved feedback from 10 peers, focusing on usability and feature relevance. Main Findings: Initial feedback highlights intuitive design and effective event discovery, though users request advanced filtering and profile customization. Technical challenges, such as preventing fake check-ins, were identified. A prototype demonstrating core functionalities (event posting, rewards, matching) was developed. Conclusion/Contribution: Shelter demonstrates how tailored digital solutions can enhance student engagement by addressing exclusivity and information gaps. If successful, it will provide a model for integrating academic and social needs, offering actionable insights for campus-focused social platforms.

Keywords: Student-Centric Social Platform, Academic and Social Engagement, Gamified Campus Networking

 Conference Details

Session: A

Location: Sir Stanley Clarke Auditorium at 11:00 13:00

Markers: Fernando Maestre Avila, Julian Hough

Course: BSc Computer Science 3yr FT

Future Plans: I’m continuing studies