Project Brief
College students face challenges in navigating campus life due to unclear access to information, difficulties in social integration, and limited access to available student benefits across academics, extracurriculars, and well-being resources.
Hiuni is the all-in-one campus platform that brings together events, marketplaces, food options, student services, and social communities in a single, trusted app.
Type
Course Work | Entrepreneurship for Designers | Semester 1 | IIT Kanpur
Teammates: Arya Prasad, Jugami Boro, Niya Sharma
Potential Problem Statement
College students face challenges in navigating campus life due to unclear access to information, difficulties in social integration, and limited access to available student benefits across academics, extracurriculars, and well-being resources.
Interview/First Insights
We took interviews and conducted a survey to understand the difficulties faced by students in adjusting to a new campus life.
CHINNU
Project Employee
finds webmail an inconvenient and exhaustive mode of communication (IWD leaky taps feedback example)
would like to thrift clothes with peers to earn an extra buck while also clearing up space
feels disconnected and excluded from the regular student body
KRITI
Phd Student
Has complaints regarding her hostel but confused which institutional body to report
bought a new cycle for campus commute, even though she has just recently bought one at home
Sam
MSR Student
Received information about her ethnic community after a month of joining.
took her a while to feel “organised” after feeling overwhelmed for a while
still has doubts regarding bills, and other obligations or operations of some parts of the institute
Mess was the easiest place for networking and cross departmental interactions
Empathy Mapping
Journey Mapping
Who all are involved in the ecosystem
Reworked Problem Statement
To make the life of a college student, especially a first year one, simpler and less overwhelming while adjusting to a new campus.
Identified Problems
Scattered info across WhatsApp groups, notice boards, multiple apps → leads to missed opportunities.
Students rely on random social media groups or word-of-mouth → unsafe, inefficient, overpriced for essentials and goods.
Freshers and international students face isolation; limited ways to connect beyond class.
Students often unaware of discounts available from local vendors, events, or online services.
Cafeteria menus and local food options are not transparent; delivery apps often costly.
Lack of visibility on counseling, health, and well-being resources → stigma & underutilization.
Creation of How Might We Statements.
How might we ensure every student can easily discover and engage with campus activities and events?
How might we enable students to easily exchange, share, or repurpose items within the campus community?
How might we strengthen connections and collaboration across departments and societies?
How might we connect students with local retailers and service providers in meaningful ways?
How might we make diverse and desirable food options more accessible for students on campus?
How might we encourage greater awareness and use of well-being resources on campus?
Ideation/Brainstorming
Asking Users Questions and giving them time to ideate solution for 5-6 minutes for each question
Segregating the solutions separately
Making Users Vote individually on the best ideas for each questions
Generating Ideation statements from voted ideas
A hybrid event discovery system — digital event calendar in IITK app synced with interactive digital notice boards on campus.
A campus verified resale marketplace integrated with WhatsApp communities for quick exchanges.
Inter-department collaborative challenges & cultural mixers, mandatory and informal.
Interactive campus service map with delivery integration, showing nearby shops & services with student reviews.
Hybrid food platform — in-campus cloud kitchen with weekly mess-menu polls integrated into app.
Well-being hub — central awareness platform with reminders for regular checkups & wellness sessions
SCAMPER
Ideating more using SCAMPER by applying it to the 6 ideas mentioned above. Only using the important and usable parts of scamper for idea generation of each statement
light text are the ideas which we decided to not take forward
Blue Ocean
Build a single ‘campus first’ platform that replaces fragmented channels with an integrated, trusted ecosystem for events, marketplace, map & discovery, food choice, cross-department collaboration and well-being
Competitive Analysis
Since there was no direct competitor for the product that we were working on we decided to divide it into multiple domains and then looking for the companies and picking their strengths and weaknesses
KPIs to track success
Monthly Active Users (MAU) & daily active usage on events/marketplace/map.
Average time-to-locate vendor (pre vs post).
Verified marketplace transactions and % successful pickup.
Event RSVP → attendance conversion rate.
Mess satisfaction score (average rating) and number of menu votes.
Well-being appointment uptake and anonymous Q&A engagement.
Reduction in distinct WhatsApp groups / volume of webmail complaints.
Revenue from vendor features / sponsored events.
Value Proposition
Statement
An all-in-one, institute-verified platform that connects college students to events, services, food, marketplace, and well-being — making campus life simpler, safer, and more engaging.
What’s in it for Colleges?
NEP points would get better with college comparison
Colleges could earn through SEO ads with 80% share
Provides data-driven insights
Student Satisfaction
Institutional Branding & Differentiation
Administrative Efficiency
Colleges might miss out on first come discounts
How will Hiuni operate? How will he sustain himself?
NEP points would get better with college comparison
Colleges could earn through SEO ads with 80% share
Provides data-driven insights
Student Satisfaction
Institutional Branding & Differentiation
Administrative Efficiency
Colleges might miss out on first come discounts
