TravelTech
Group Members
Yuchen Feng, ycfeng@mit.edu
Timmy Galvin, tgalvin@mit.edu
Neena Parikh, nsparikh@mit.edu
Problem Statement
Fact #1: MIT students often travel to new places whether it is for a summer in London or an IAP in New York. While some programs, such as MISTI, are very structured and provide students with living arrangements and a solid MIT network, other programs do not.
Fact #2: When people travel to new places they often crave a familiar face, at least at first.
Fact #3: MIT students currently do not have a tool to easily locate other MIT students when they are thrown into a new environment.
Example Problem: Sascha went to Germany last summer for an internship. Because she applied to a internship outside of MISTI, she does not have an established living arrangement or a list of MIT contacts who will be in Germany. She is looking for a roommate and a way to make friends in Germany.
Example User Goals:
- Find a roommate who is at least an MIT student, if not someone in the user’s living group or a friend of a friend.
- Make travel plans such as sharing a cab.
- Find friends to hang out with and communicate with them via mass messaging.
- Find a trustworthy network.
Obstacles:
- Scaling to other universities and networks.
- Attracting people to Travel Agent will be problematic at first because people have established networks on Facebook and will have no incentive to learn a new interface, register for a new account.
A Solution: A web interface that facilitates location of and communication with other students would be a useful tool. This project aims to create such a tool that will provide users with a way of coordinating and communicating with students near them.