Finding your community on a college campus can be challenging. With hundreds of clubs, events, and activities scattered across multiple platforms, many students struggle to discover opportunities that align with their interests. This is the problem that Communiti, founded by Uzochi Nzerem (MET’26), Ananya Agarwal (CAS’25), Eugene Jung (CAS’26), Venessa Maduka (ENG’26), and Jacky Lin (CAS’28), aims to solve.
The idea for Communiti emerged from the founders’ personal experiences navigating campus life at Boston University. For Ananya, an international student majoring in economics and mathematics, the challenge became apparent during her sophomore year when she tried to find leadership opportunities.
“I did not know the importance of joining a club on campus and building a profile, even for your career, when you’re trying to look for a job,” Ananya explains. “I relied on word of mouth. I would go and do what my friends were doing, and the only other solution was to go and sift through data center, which is BU’s directory to look for clubs, and there are no real filters.”
The frustration with outdated information and disconnected communication channels is something many students face. “I was going and looking through it manually and reading through each page. The information is outdated and you can’t really communicate with the club through that platform. So I would have to go and dig that email or if they have a website or social media page.”
For Chi, who studies business with a minor in computer science, the challenge was even greater as a transfer student living off campus.
“I never had that deeply connected on-campus experience,” she shares. “It’s very important for someone like me to be able to easily get that information, so that I can go out and try out those clubs and see what sticks, and just find my community and people more easily.”
This shared frustration led to the creation of Communiti, a centralized platform where students can discover clubs and events tailored to their interests, receive real-time updates, and communicate directly with club leaders.
What makes Communiti stand out is its focus on solving problems for both students and club leaders. For students, the platform provides personalized recommendations and timely updates about events. For clubs, particularly smaller ones struggling to find their audience, Communiti offers increased visibility and management tools.
“From our interviews, we realized that small clubs who are up and coming on campus struggle to find the right audience for their particular niche,” notes Ananya. “Sometimes they rely on word of mouth, other times with social media, but either way, they’re limited to the people who know about them, and it’s hard for them to go and interact with the broader community.”
The platform also addresses the challenge of fragmented communication that club leaders face. “It’s kind of hard to reach all of their members, even sometimes when they’re using different platforms to connect with them,” Chi explains. “Some of them use things like Slack, Instagram, and so everything’s just very disconnected. Some people get some updates and then they don’t get others.”
The team’s participation in the New Venture Competition (NVC) has helped refine their approach and business model. “Before NVC, I focused more on the technical side of things,” Ananya reflects. “But now NVC allows us to focus on the market and who our stakeholders are. It gave us inspiration and motivation to actually go and talk to our customers, really map out the pain points.”
With an MVP nearly complete, the Communiti team is excited to begin onboarding clubs and gathering user feedback. Their vision extends beyond Boston University, with plans to expand to other campuses across the nation.
“We’ve mapped about 3,000 colleges that we can target to expand Communiti,” Ananya shares. “We would help them create a community tailored to their local university, and help them find personalized recommendations as well as clubs to manage discovery and other management tools.”
The potential impact goes beyond just connecting students with clubs. As Ananya puts it, Communiti helps “colleges in general become more homey and for you to not feel like you’re ever alone on a campus. There is always potential for you to discover something that aligns with your interests or your goals, and it becomes an overall better experience.”
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