Social studying
Alum launches social network to help UD students
2:41 p.m., Oct. 24, 2011--Can studying be social and fun? According to Nikhil Paul, yes it can, thanks to his venture, Nfoshare, an online platform that connects students directly to their professors, tutors and classmates to achieve real time academic conversations anytime.
Paul, who earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at the University of Delaware in 2009, remembered all too well the challenges of working through a difficult major and feeling a sense of loneliness in studying academic material.
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“I felt like an outsider looking in and had so many questions about what I was learning that just weren’t addressed in the classroom,” said Paul.
With a friendship base of non-engineering majors who couldn’t relate to him and no greater connections to the program, Paul got the idea for a platform that would enable students to study difficult material more effectively.
After winning the state of Delaware Business Plan Competition, Paul and Nfoshare partnered with the Academic Enrichment Center (AEC) at UD to pilot the service during the spring semester of 2011.
The pilot project involved 500 students and 25 classes from various majors at UD with $1,000 from the AEC to support live tutor assistance to students on Nfoshare the night preceding exams.
According to Paul, at the end of the two and a half month pilot “the site racked up more than 20,000 hits with average user times of up to 20 minutes.”
The positive feedback from students was also overwhelming.
“I found Nfoshare to be useful and it was easy to have the window open while I was studying in case I came across a problem,” said UD accounting student Amanda Garger. “My answers were all addressed very quickly and the online tutors were helpful.”
Success at that level was enough for Paul to quit his Fortune 500 corporate job and move his team’s work to the University’s Venture Development Center.
Now with a motto, “No college student should ever feel like they are studying alone,” Nfoshare is focused on making studying social and fun.
“Nfoshare is at the forefront of a new wave of tech entrepreneurship that centers on changing and challenging an archaic approach to education,” said Paul. “With new technology incubators focused on rearing academic startups and NGOs like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation investment in education startups, for-profit academic initiatives are beginning to generate a lot of buzz.”
Paul said Nfoshare is also negotiating with Drexel and Philadelphia universities to begin testing next semester and he has set his sights on lofty goals.
“This semester we’re aiming to get as many UD professors and students on Nfoshare as possible to encourage the University to become an official Nfoshare partner,” said Paul. “Then we can go after serious funding to scale our model to other universities. Our vision is to be the second page open after Facebook for college students who are studying. We just want to get students excited about learning again.”
For more about the company, visit the website or email Paul at nikhiljpaul@gmail.com.
Article by Kathryn Meier