Look for clubs the easy way; on an app

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A newly graduated Carleton University engineering student and his childhood friends are making it easier for post-secondary students to find clubs and make friends.

Elias Fare, founder of Campusgrids, regretted missing events and not meeting people outside of his program.

“I’d always be around other engineering students so, I didn’t really get the whole [university] experience,” he said. “I didn’t meet a lot of people outside of my faculty so I thought of coming up with Campusgrids.”

The app is what students need on campus, he said.

“It helps students organize their events. It shows them what clubs and events are going on at their school. They can add their classes on it and see [who their classmates are]. They can create a forum for their class or [start] a class discussion.”

Campusgrids connects students with clubs and vice versa.

He said hopes Campusgrids will centralize all student associations’ clubs.

“It was really hard to find out where all the events were posted,” he said. “Every club would have their own website, their own Facebook group and you would have to go search for them. But if you didn’t know what clubs existed, you don’t really know what you’re searching for.”

What started as a website soon turned into the app called Campusgrids, which he launched September of 2013.

It garnered the attention of over 600 students from both Carleton and the University of Ottawa.

The app holds similarities to popular dating app Tinder, like matching students based on interests and programs, but Fare doesn’t want Campusgrids to be associated as a dating app.

“They don’t go on it to meet [their] match – it’s a fun way to meet students,” he said. “We don’t want to be seen as a dating [app], but you do meet other students there and it does match based on gender and based on a lot of other things.”

Interests like business, law, tech, science…

“It’s just selecting check boxes on what interests you like and sending it in,” Fare said about the app.

Campusgrids is gaining momentum, with close to 1,000 users, and Fare hopes the app will go nation- wide. It launches officially on August 26 for both iPhone and Android.

You can find Campusgrids on your device’s app store and download free of charge.

“For students it’s free and it always will be.”

For more information visit campusgrids.com and/or follow them on Twitter @campusgrids.
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