Around Me Information

AroundMe puts students into small groups that meet in the same place, at the same time, every week. There is no browsing and no swiping. A student picks a place on campus and the kind of thing they want to do there. We build the group, set the time, check that the venue is actually open that day, and send one invite: who you are meeting, where, when, and why this group. We ran a first version of this at UC Riverside in 2024. 538 students signed up and 105 meetups were booked through us, across 65 hotspots that students created themselves. It worked better than it had any right to, and it stopped for a reason we can name. Students had to make the hotspot, then find each other, then agree a time. That is four decisions and a scheduling negotiation before anybody leaves the house, and coordination is exactly the friction people avoid. So this version does the coordinating. We pick the place, we hold the slot, we verify the hours against the current term, and we compose the group. We are starting again at UC Riverside in September 2026, on one campus and nowhere else. The public goal is 100 meetups and 500 students by December 2026, and we will post the number every month, including the months it looks bad. If you teach at UCR, run a student organisation, or manage a venue near campus, we would like to talk!