2019-2021
Started on Columbia’s campus, then went remote
Pedro Damasceno, Jackie Marchal, Chris Wang & I designed and built schefs.us from scratch, thinking carefully and intentionally about how to create a new kind of social network, where users were defined not by their biographical details or popularity, but rather their eclectic range of interests.
Key features of the site included the ability to make an account, sign in/out, and create an event using our “event builder”, which prompted a user to come up with a title, brief description of their proposed conversation, and select a visual to represent it from our curated image library. Once submitted and peer reviewed by our team, events would be published on our home page, where any student with a Schefs account could sign up to attend. The events would take place over zoom, with all logistics and communications automated on the backend.
We developed a motto that become the project’s guiding principle: to Learn From Each Other. Core to the mission was encouraging enthusiasm rather than expertise. No one expects you to know everything about anything at 20 years old—but we can harness our passion and use that enthusiasm as entry points into valuable dialogue with others. Why not create intentional spaces to share with and learn from each other, outside the classroom?
The Open Mind Archive was an idea to build a curiosity bank: a public list of topics Schefs members wanted to learn more about. That way, if you saw a topic on the list that you knew something about, you might get inspired to lead an event on it, knowing that others would be interested. Plus, it was a way to get a pulse on what people were thinking about, and there were often common themes.