Within one semester, two UF students created and launched a social networking forum that has registered over 300 users.
Siddha Tiwari, 19, and Jay Mithani, 20, both UF computer science juniors, built Poncho from scratch this semester. Since its Sept. 22 launch, 320 users have joined the site.
“We created it because we wanted college students to have a community where they can discuss things they care about and talk with like-minded people,” Mithani said.
The app allows users to make posts categorized by topics such as relationships, internships, money or fitness. Students can interact with others’ posts, private message users or public message in a global group chat.
To sign up, the app requires college students to verify their enrollment status with a student email. UF students will also have the ability to categorize content by university.
Other social media similar to Poncho, such as Reddit’s university subreddit r/college, do not have this verification process, according to Tiwari.
“It creates an environment where you know other people are college students and can share unique perspectives you might not know about,” Tiwari said.
Most on-campus promotional efforts so far have been geared toward students in computer science. The founding duo hosted an event with UF’s software engineering club called CodeShop on Oct. 24.
“We showed them internally how the app was created to get them interested and asking questions about it,” he said.
In the future, they hope to collaborate with other on-campus organizations.
Anna Lanzino, a 21-year-old UF computer science junior, is a regular Poncho user. She found the app through the creators’ promotional Reddit post after the app’s launch. She uses it to communicate with other computer science students to make sure she is on track with her peers.
For example, in one post she asked how many coding problems other students could complete in a week.
“[I use Poncho] just to gauge other people’s work schedules because sometimes I feel like I’m not doing enough,” Lanzino said.
Users also frequently post about internship applications, experiences with certain companies or tips on how to land a job.
“Considering it’s in early stages, I think the app design is really good,” she said.
