The transition from home to host country can be a daunting experience for study abroad students. But two budding Irish entrepreneurs are looking to make that undertaking as smooth as possible with an app that compiles all the information international students require to feel comfortable in their new location.
StudentGo is a mobile application that is currently aimed at students doing a study abroad in the city of Galway, Ireland. However the founders, NUI Galway students Conor Flynn and Fiachra Coyne are hoping to expand it to other cities throughout Ireland and Europe.
“StudentGo was born to help alleviate the stress of moving country and allow students to have the best possible Erasmus experience”
By conducting online surveys and drawing from their own experiences as Erasmus students in Spain, Flynn and Coyne pulled together all the information that they felt was necessary for a student in unfamiliar surroundings to acclimatise.
“With our move to Spain, we were thrown into the deep end, we found it really difficult to find even the most basic information about our new home,” explained Flynn.
“The biggest problem was that we had no clue where to look for information, especially given the fact our city [León] was relatively small.
“We found that many others were encountering similar issues…those who went to France were also caught up in the whirlwind, so the idea for StudentGo was born to help alleviate the stress of moving country, reduce the settling in period, and allow students to have the best possible Erasmus experience.”
Initially developed as part of their final year IT project, the founders’ project coordinator Attracta Brennan suggested they seek additional funding for the app to take it to market, which they received from the International Affairs Office and campus-based entrepreneurship program, Blackstone Launchpad.
StudentGo, which is now available to download from Google play and iPhone app store, has received plenty of positive feedback from international student users, and the founders were presented with an award from NUI Galway for the ‘Best BA Project 2016/17’.
“Overall, the feedback from students has been extremely positive,” said Flynn.
“When we first introduced the idea to the international students last year, they loved the idea of an interactive, tailormade guide to their host city based on the experiences of the international students that had already attended the university.
“These students liked that we were planning to include information not only about the university such as timetables but also about finding accommodation, social events in Galway, and transport information around the city.”
“Our aim was and is to make lives of international students more relaxed, thus helping enjoy their experience in Galway to the absolute fullest,” added Coyne.
“We feel like we are beginning to understand the needs of international students more, and we would like to make our App available to as many students as possible.
“We have already begun to come up with a couple of ideas of how we could make the App even better so we feel that this is just the beginning of a journey that we are really excited to embark upon.”
