Carleton students Ahmed El Mahrakawy and Brandon Schurman recently celebrated the launch of their new app, Branch. The app was released to the Google Play Store on March 20. The co-inventors have been planning a bright future for the creation ever since.
Branch is designed with an adequate focus on proximity, thus connecting Carleton students to each other based on location.
“We originally wanted a way to connect the Ottawa community, but we needed a smaller ecosystem—so we chose Carleton. We are trying to create a more collaborative community” said El Mahrakawy, a business and psychology major.
Oliver’s Pub, the undergrad pub located in the UniCentre, currently has a GPS device associated with the app. This allows the connection of users within the pub. Through the app, students are able to view other individuals who are currently at the same location or event with the additional option of communicating with them.
Branch also offers an info page, allowing users to view information communicated by the event to its guests. It also allows students to view the current locations of their friends.
El Mahrakawy explained future goals in terms of app development involve many advancements to everyday interactions. These include, but are not limited to, the ability to order from app-supported food vendors as well as the convenience of purchasing items directly from the app with the use of student campus cards.
Schurman and El Mahrakawy also envision a new future where even professors will become engaged in the use of the Branch. They aim to add additional features that will soon allow professors to share files with their students through the info page.
This will aid in effective attendance-taking, as the focus of proximity will ensure the names of all students present will appear on the app, thus indicating those who are absent will not be falsely accounted for. This aspect is of potential benefit to students, as it will promote class attendance and engagement which could lead to an overall improvement in performance.
First-year student Joanna Zebib said while she believes the launch of this app is of interest to Carleton students in terms of its efficiency, the socializing aspect to it can be improved because it comes off as intrusive.
“The concepts are great, but it needs to work out some kinks in the marketing,” said Paige Bryenton, another first-year student at Carleton.
El Mahrakawy and his team plans to put the app and its overall uses to further tests throughout the summer. However, he does believe Branch will be used at various locations around campus, starting in September. He explained it can simply be described as “your campus companion.”
According to El Mahrakawy, the future of Carleton’s everyday campus interactions have the potential to improve immensely with the existence of Branch.
