Zim University Students Now Have Social Site Which Allows Them To Collaborate On Projects

If you’re a student at a tertiary institution and you’ve ever tried to keep up with events, work on a project with students from other institutions or just keep up with news concerning your institution you will definitely know that this is a pain. You’ll probably have to be in multiple Whatsapp/Facebook groups and handling the constant stream of activity in these is not for everyone.

A local student -Tinovimba Mawoyo- realised this and decided to create a site that would act as a hub containing all this info in one place. He created Varconn and this social site allows students to work on projects with students from other institutions. The site also helps students keep track of events and news in their institutions.

A knowledge database

In our communication with Varconn founder, there are multiple problems they are trying to tackle. One of the biggest problems he noted was the fact that though students in tertiary institutions were learning similar programs, the difference in lecturers could significantly alter the quality of the education they get.

What this means is that even though students graduate from college/uni with an identical degree but with different levels of mastery depending on which institution they attended. In order to improve this, they created a website where tertiary students can come together and share the knowledge they have.

On the platform, students can share notes and ideas and also collaborate on projects online, without having to physically visit their partner.

Updates

Secondly, if students want a place where they can get news and updates concerning universities they have no place to turn to. Tinovimba Mawoyo hopes that the Varconn website can change all that:

There is actually no media platform for news and updates which concentrates on Universities. Events happen, like the ZUSA’s , matches are played, musicians perform at different schools, without the knowledge of the whole student body knowing. Students have to rely on communication platforms like Whatsapp, and this platform is not entirely reliable as anyone can create their own story and maybe spice up true stories.

Due to this, Varconn went ahead and added a news section to its feature-set. Upcoming Events are also featured in this section. The events will also have a time, date, venue and the fee (if there’s one). The events which will be covered include sporting events, beauty pageants and other uni-type of events (I haven’t been).

Because of the social nature of the site, it’s easier to students in any other university to search for students studying similar programs- by just searching using keywords:

Let’s just say you are a CUT student who wants to deliver news to any ZOU student, you can just search ZOU and can deliver the news to anyone. And maybe you a computer science student from MSU who wants to communicate with another computer science student from UZ, all you have to do is search using the keyword Computer Science and everyone in that category would appear. Connecting could never get easier than this.

Verdict

The website clearly has potential but as with every social site, it can only become truly viable once more people join. Right now the fact that there are a few people using it is the only thing hurting Varconn. If you’re a uni student I advise you to check out this platform as it seems like a social platform with a very specific purpose.

You can check out Varconn here.