By Annie Archer

It’s often hard for University of Maryland students to keep track of the many events and activities that happen on campus. One graduate student is trying to fix that.

Harshit Gautam, a UMD graduate with a master’s degree in information systems, created a mobile app called UnoBuddy — a program that caters specifically to UMD students by consolidating information regarding on-campus events and forums all onto one platform.

Gautam first thought of the idea last fall during a freshman orientation program. He recalled sitting in the Stamp Student Union and hearing incoming freshman pass by asking similar questions regarding directions and information about on-campus events and programs.

Gautam asked himself, “Why don’t we have a common aggregated platform for all of these things?”

The app aims to fulfill several student needs by providing a number of resources, including event information, maps, deals on campus and a Q&A section for students to ask specific questions.

Jinali Gandhi, a UMD graduate with a master’s degree in information systems and a UnoBuddy user, said that often times information about events is too sparse and lacks authenticity.

According to Gandhi, UnoBuddy solves this problem by putting all relevant campus information under one roof.

“While you are in grad school, time management is one of the most crucial factors,” Gandhi said. “Amidst all the assignments, exams, projects and job search one needs a reliable, consolidated source of rich information which helps make your above mentioned tasks easier.”

Gautam explained that in the past, as the Vice-President of the Information Systems Association at Robert H. Smith School of Business, he found publicizing events on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to be unhelpful because it only reached the limited number of students who followed the account.

“I wanted to create a common platform where all UMD students are present and if someone posts an event, it reaches everyone,” he said.

Francis Antony, a UMD graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in information systems, said, “I feel that there are a lot of events happening across campus every day and I sometimes miss certain events that I really wanted to attend.”

According to Gautam, during the months of September and October alone there were close to 200 events happening on campus, but there was no aggregated list of them on one university website. UnoBuddy combines all of these event listings that are scattered across multiple platforms into one simple list that is easy to access and understand on the app.

Furthermore, he said, the app provides information that isn’t always readily available on most other university websites. Antony said he found the app to be useful in learning more about course registration and filing taxes.

“This is not something I’m trying to make money from,” he said. “It’s meant to be a unifying app for students to help make their years spent at UMD as memorable as they can be.”

The UnoBuddy app is available for free download on iOS and Android mobile phones.